


Centerfold

by Immerghensi



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Asexual Yeosang, Lingerie, M/M, Modeling, San and Seonghwa are Brothers, no beta we die like women, office workers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Immerghensi/pseuds/Immerghensi
Summary: Seonghwa doesnotscream, he makes avery dignified, manly, loud yellof shock and surprise.The model in the centerfold wears an almost arrogant look, like he knows he's better than everyone and can’t be bothered by the multitudes of horny catastrophes ogling the photo, but it isn’t that because Seonghwa knows him and that isn’t the kind of person he is.Kang Yeosang is an angel.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Kang Yeosang/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 31
Kudos: 211





	1. Does He Come Complete

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song ['Centerfold' by J. Geils Band. ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDjMZKf-wg) You've definitely heard it, and if you haven't, please do. Seriously catchy.

Seonghwa has half a mind to throw out the magazine the second he gets an eyeful of the nearly-naked man on the cover. San had left it there for him, something about how he needed to check out page 45 written in haphazard chicken scratch on a sticky note placed conveniently over the crotch area. It’s more than likely a waste of his time, but he’s a good hyung, a decent human, and he decides to humor his little twerp of a brother just one more time.

_16...23...37...49...43, 44, 45-_

Seonghwa does _not_ scream, he makes a _very dignified, manly, loud yell_ of shock and surprise.

A loud bang echoes through the empty house as he panic-throws the booklet back onto the table.

_What the fuck._

_What the absolute fuck._

His knees falter beneath him and Seonghwa lays in a bewildered heap in the middle of the kitchen walkway looking like the posterboy for LifeAlert. If he removed his hand from his mouth, he isn’t sure if he would laugh or make a strained dolphin noise or if he would sit there not breathing. Part of him wants to see it again, just to make sure, but another part knows that he doesn’t make mistakes like that. The magazine lays face down with the sticky note-crotched model looking up to mock him, the center insert completely unfolded but face down. One of his hands grabs hold of a chair in support while the other one latches onto his chest over his heart.

He shakes out his muscles, lets out an uneasy breath.

_It’s just a picture, it can’t hurt you._

Seonghwa prepares for impact...

And turns over the magazine.

The image is still there, except now he can’t censor himself from it because the poster is open and facing outward. The model’s back is curved in a pretty arch to push his chest forward, which is covered by the translucent black lace of a negligee. One leg is bent upwards to show off a slender calf; the other, bent out to the side in a sort of criss-cross-applesauce fashion, and Seonghwa’s insides definitely feel like they’re being pulverized. His gaze alternates between being captivated by the elegance just in the model’s legs to imagining the feel of soft skin of his chest underneath the tantalizing lace. Back and forth his eyes rake past the knee to the smooth plane of thigh, then up to the shadow of his ribs, then to the left leg laying perfectly in a mix of light and shadow, then to the dip of his neat waist, then down to the jut of his hips with the _thin thin thin_ band across it indicating that he must be wearing a thong, or something equally as strappy and oh god, no, why, _why?_ Did God find amusement in how weak Seonghwa was? He's the gay disaster equivalent of that one video where the guy with the forklift drops the palette of bottles and destroys an entire warehouse of Coca-Cola, and he wishes that were just an exaggeration but he’s _that_ bad. The mere thought worshiping that body, of taking those teasing pieces off of him, is enough to make his face begin to radiate in a dead giveaway heat, his eyes coming back down to the strategically shadowed junction between his legs, and Seonghwa’s grip on self-control is lost among fantasies of how good it would look if the photographer had walked another 45 degrees. He finally musters up the courage to look at the model’s face again.

Surprisingly enough, this was the part he had the most trouble with during his initial 0.02 second peek. The sharp jawline is tilted up, the young man looking off to the side with an air of sophistication mixed with a hint of arrogance. It’s like he _knows_ he looks good and can’t be bothered to take notice of the horny catastrophes like him ogling the photo, but that isn’t it because Seonghwa _knows_ him and that isn’t the kind of person he is.

Kang Yeosang is an angel.

Seonghwa flips back his mental rolodex to his cringey high school years sitting in the musty gymatorium, thankful to be getting out of a class he didn’t want to be in if only to be packed in close with kids he didn’t give a damn about like they were sardines. And he remembers a handful of boys and girls standing in a neat line at the front, most prominent of which was the resident angel of the school, Yeosang. He remembers sparkling eyes and plush cheeks framed around a picture-perfect smile telling the graduating class of two-thousand-however-many about the plans they had for their yearly fundraiser because the principal was a weak man who was too nervous to address a room full of rowdy, angsty 17-18 year old’s who would call him out in an instant for what he was. He remembers seeing the awards in the cabinet outside of his chemistry class announcing that the kids on some physics project had won an award at an international competition, Yeosang’s face all grainy in the newsprint group photo. He remembers being dragged out to a football game by San because San was always the social one and all of his friends were going out for homecoming and their mom never let San out with any large number of hooligans unless Seonghwa agreed to go too (even though Seonghwa turned him loose to do whatever non-illegal thing his heart desired the second they were parked) which is how he ended up watching Yeosang in a tight-fitting uniform with the cheerleaders. After the game, he’d waited for everyone to clear out before attempting to walk down the bleachers and that’s when he saw the other boy with two of his cheerleading teammates talking to a small group of kids he vaguely recognized as 3 of the top 5 highest-achieving students in the school.

It was curious, he’d thought.

Yeosang was part of a different group all together back then, one that had the tendency to eye Seonghwa up and down and then pull their bags closer to themselves like protective shields. They never interacted- he’s pretty sure Yeosang literally ran away from him once, though that was after that one interaction that still haunts him at 2am- and he doesn’t blame him for his perfectly-functioning sense of self-preservation. And it's not like Seonghwa really knew him either- he just knew that there was a particularly attractive boy who was involved in committees and did exceptionally well in school and was a familiar face around sporting events but rarely went to the afterparties.

And Yeosang was pretty then, too, like the kind of pretty that was only deserving of the best, and that wasn’t Seonghwa by a long shot. At 18, he'd had a three-foot terror radius and the rumor of a forked tongue. Yeosang could’ve had anyone he wanted, if he wanted, which he didn’t because he was too ambitious and intent on going to some fancy college and getting a degree. As far as Seonghwa knew, he'd done just that.

So what, in the ever-loving _fuck,_ was he doing in a Playboy magazine, and _why_ on God’s green earth was he the centerfold?

++

++

San is barely through the door when he’s met with a barrage of questions from Seonghwa, some of them asking why he thought bringing this kind of unholy rag into their house was a good idea and the vast majority asking about the guy on page 45.

“That’s him, isn’t it? Graduated early, otherwise he would have been in my year.”

“Yeah! How did you find this?”

“Wooyoung was going on and on about the shoot. Told him it sounded cool and wished him good luck. This morning, he shoves it in my bag and tells me ‘thanks for the support’. I think I’m making progress, hyung!”

Ah yes, here it comes. The daily spew of facts about the latest object of San’s obsession. Seonghwa knows more about Wooyoung than he ever wanted or needed since he’d become the designated Receiver of Complaints ever since that first morning. San's company had moved them to a new office location ten minutes further out of the way, and he'd been in the middle of cooking when San came barreling through to tell him about the beautiful boy he’d just met. This boy (”You’re the same age, San!”) worked for the office which had taken up residence on the opposite side of the building. The meridian was a well-distinguished line of monochrome desks butting up against a line of brightly-colored ones with San on one side and an unsuspecting Jung Wooyoung on the other side and it had all been downhill from there.

“...and he dragged Yeosang to it because they’ve been friends for like... ever. I was paging through and saw him and I thought he looked familiar and now _boom_ , we’re here!”

“Do you know if he works around here?”

He shrugs, “Beats me. He’d have to, though. Pretty sure he lives with or next to Wooyoung.”

Seonghwa sighs and rests his forehead in his hand. “I don’t want to know how you know that.":

He’ll have to talk to San again about not scaring off people with his uncanny ability to remember miniscule details, but that’s a battle for another time. For now, he needs to take a nap and process this.

++

++

Seonghwa goes into work the next day hyper aware of everything around him. He can’t stop thinking about the centerfold picture, it literally haunts his dreams, and when he realized he was waking up alone, it had physically hurt. Does anyone think he looks strange? The button-up/sweater combo sits wrong on him and his skin feels too warm. Is his face red? He pops into the bathroom for the fifth time just to make sure.

Sitting in his station, he does his best to focus, honest! But it's hard to read through possible leads when all of this brainpower is being put towards the Centerfold. They hadn’t crossed paths in God, who knows how long? At least 6 years. A lot could happen in that time. Seonghwa has the horrible vision of Yeosang being at the mercy of some brutish, fat mobster forcing him to take pictures, holding his family or friends or any number of things over him, but then squashes it with the fact that Wooyoung, a non-mobster as far as he can tell, is in the picture. He breathes out another wistful sight. Yeosang looked so elegant in the picture, but also like the epitome of the male figure-

_No no no don’t do this, not again!_

He pushes the feelings down. It wasn’t becoming of him to be so flustered. This was anatomy, and over the (very limited) course of his career, he had seen tons of people in different levels of detail and undress, so why should this be any different? It’ s not like he’ll ever come face to face with him, probably, since for all of San’s talk, he didn’t have the guts to ask Wooyoung on a date, and that meant Yeosang wouldn't be around. And it’s not like Yeosang knew that he’d seen the shot.

He pauses.

Yeosang didn’t know he saw that shot... right?

Papers and notepads go flying out of his bag and into mismatched stacks on his desk as he searches for his phone and then oh right, hehe, remembers that he put it in one of the side pockets.

_Today, 10:21am_

XXXXXX0402 San

XXXXXX0402 San

XXXXXX0402: San

XXXXXX0402: San for the love of all all the puppies in the world answer me

XXXXXX0402: [image attached]

XXXXXX0710: Oh my god it’s so soft I can’t believe this Gwa we’re gonna get one this instant

XXXXXX0402: San did you tell Wooyoung that you showed me the magazine?

XXXXXX0710: No, he’s out sick today

XXXXXX0710: lmao why?

XXXXXX0402: Ok good

XXXXXX0402: Don’t tell him

XXXXXX0710: …..why....?

XXXXXX0402: I’ve never really met Yeosang and I don't want my first impression to be a perv

XXXXXX0710: OH MY GOD IM DECEASED

XXXXXX0710: IM HOWLING ASDFGHJKL

XXXXXX0402: San I’m serious!

XXXXXX0402: If by some horrible twist of fate he remembers me it's gonna be a bad look

XXXXXX0710: Yeah I got you, my lips are sealed

XXXXXX0710: Are you seriously worried about that?

XXXXXX0402: Yes! You talk to him a lot! Don’t want your big mouth letting that out!

XXXXXX0710: WAIT JUST A MINUTE!

Seonghwa’s phone vibrates furiously as San voices his outrage with a collection of memes and a gif of an interpretive dance. He places it in his bag with the reassurance that he won’t be a disaster off the bat, crisis averted, than goodness. What are the chances they actually meet though? Would he even recognize Seonghwa? Yeosang probably has a million new, interesting friends from college- would he even care about what the resident bad omen from his high school been up to? And if he does...

The phone seems to glare a hole at him from the bottom of his bag, and it's tempting, it’s tempting just to pick it back up. Seonghwa looks around, chews on his lip.

It couldn't just to take a quick peek, right?

No one around, no one to see, and he does all of his work, so it shouldn’t be a problem. He opens up Instagram and searches for Kang Yeosang.

_loading, loading, loading...._

The 41 mutual friends makes finding him much easier than he expected, and there’s a little icon which looks vaguely like the boy he remembers and a little less vaguely like the man from the magazine currently in San’s room (though Seonghwa kind of sort of wishes it was in his room, but he’d deny it vehemently if he were ever accused of such thoughts) and he clicks on it.

Yeosang doesn’t post much. There are a few major milestones- graduations, awards, trips- a few birthdays, but it isn’t like the profile Seonghwa keeps for work. He can see the progression from the rounder face of youth to the sharp jawline appearing as though it were wading out of the sea and his skin, water. There are a few pictures of concerts, Yeosang’s features all blurry from where he and all of the strangers in the frame are jumping up and down. He likes rock? What a guy, he was expecting more like electronic Electric Daisy Carnival (yes, he went there) (no, he isn't going back) -type music but yeah this is great. He scrolls down further to a post with a smiley Yeosang holding a skateboard. _Thanks for the great day!_ The caption says, and scrolling through the collage, there’s a small chocolate cake with a single candle throwing off the lighting, a clip of him doing a sort of jump-flip-trick thing on the new skateboard, and a picture of him with his parents.

It’s adorable. Seonghwa can’t help but smile at the image, his heart thrumming in his chest. If he were a cat, he would be purring in content. He skips through a few more posts about music and art and whatnot and stops on a selfie. His hair is lighter for summer and crinkled and he’s wearing the cutest sweater and _OH GOD NO HE JUST DOUBLE TAPPED JESUS FUCKING CHRIST--_

Seonghwa wheezes as he panic-throws his phone. His heart is doing the entire Cirque du Soleil Powertrack routine and that’s it, he’s done for, time to move to the Alaskan wilderness and become one with the trees.

"Fuck!" He presses his palms into his eyes and leans onto his desk in self-disappointment. 

There's nothing he can do about it now other than play it cool. He's fine. This is fine.

Just pretend like it never happened.


	2. My Homeroom Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wooyoung definitely owes him for this one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are barely any asexual main characters and that needs to not be a thing  
> Look at my ace baby go

The second the affirmation left his mouth, Yeosang knew that this was arguably the biggest and worst mistake he had ever made for the sake of Wooyoung. But he had asked so nicely! Could anyone really blame him? It was obvious how nervous he was to be petitioning Yeosang in the first place that his heartstrings had stung in second-hand hurt. It was just a small shoot, nothing crazy, but the guy who was supposed to be in it had gotten pulled for something involving runways and Paris and wouldn’t be returning anytime soon, honestly it’ll probably be like a half-page at most, will you do it Sangie, please please please?

In the moment, it didn't seem like such a big deal, but staring down a dozen ajummas saying things like ‘you're so pretty!’ and ‘you’ll look great in this!’ to the point of losing his social liferaft of a friend is definitely making him rethink things. Someone grabs him by the arm and shoves him into a dressing room with four or five outfits hanging up.

"Try these on and then come out!" they yell, and the dressing room door swings closed behind him. In the quiet, he steps closer to look at each of the hangers sporting beautiful patterns and fabrics. And he also gets the full sense that once he puts these on, he isn't going to be wearing much.

Yeosang gulps.

It’s going to be a long day.

++

++

Does it fit?

Yes.

Is it comfortable?

It’s not bad.

Is he ready to come out?

Oh _hell_ no.

It had taken nearly ten continuous minutes of Wooyoung's coaxing to get him to open the door, but one look at his friend and he'd jumped back in.

“I’m never gonna be able to look at you the same way.” he moans, cheeks spotting a subtle tulip pink. No matter how hard he presses his palms into his eyes, the image of a Wooyoung in stockings is seared into his brain. It'll haunt him for as long as he and Wooyoung are friends, and since they made a pact at the tender age of five to become old farts together, he's going to be having nightmares about ivory lace for the next 60-70 years.

Wooyoung looks down at himself, checking over the lace pulled up over the dark honeyed skin of his thighs and the colorful silk robe flowing loosely around him. “What are you talking about? You’ve seen me naked before!”

“But that was an _accident_ ,” he argues through the door, “this is different!”

“Is it because I'm wearing panties?”

“You're _WHAT?!?!_ ”

The banter between a gently encouraging Wooyoung ("It's not a big deal! Men can wear beautiful things and feel good about themselves too!!") and a lamenting Yeosang ("Just because I feel OK about it _DOES NOT_ automatically mean I want other people to see me!") goes on like a tennis match. The ajummas are eyeing their watches and whispering to one another on the side, and it’s a miracle they’re being so patient. It's probably because Wooyoung talks to them more than their own grandkids do.

“He seems nervous. Maybe we should reschedule for another day?” A woman whispers just loud enough for Wooyoung and not the entire chattering room to hear. It's a nice gesture, he'll give her that.

Except Yeosang can hear it too.

And it hits at something inside of him, something deeper than his pride. Yeosang is a lot of things. He’s been called an overachiever because he likes seeing 90’s and 100's on his exam papers and a bore because God forbid someone finds science interesting and a prude because he's asexual but of all those things, he is _not_ a quitter, and by god, he is not going to let his past hang ups about his body image stop him now. 

“No, it's ok. I’m coming out now.”

There’s a beat of silence, most likely the others taking a collective deep breath in anticipation, and Yeosang unlocks the door.

He steps out.

Wooyoung does not scream.

Wooyoung _shrieks_.

The first outfit wasn't nearly as revealing as the others, this one sporting a long robe which dragged along the floor behind him, giving him an air of elegance. He looks like a prince, if a prince could have an allergy to wearing all articles of clothing besides a pair of black silk underwear. The makeup underneath his eyes has started to smudge and fade and even though that isn't the look they were going for, it somehow looks infinitely better; infinitely more dark and dangerous. Just looking at him sends a shiver up Wooyoung's spine and he bites down hard on his lip to stop himself from breaking everyoyne's eardrums a second time. 

“You look so good!!!” He grabs Yeosang by the hand and tugs him along to where the props and screens are set up with his mouth going a mile a minute saying different renditions of ‘you got this, you're gonna kill it’. All eyes are on him as more hands position him and voices belonging to faceless staff members give him instructions on how to look and act. The cameramen eyeing him through their heavy 70mm lens cameras might not be interested in men, but by the way they're looking at him, Wooyoung knows that they're at the point beyond male and female where there’s only sheer beauty to be identified and appreciated, and Yeosang is most definitely beautiful.

The first shutter clicks, Yeosang tipping his head back and basking in the flashing lights.

Wooyoung takes it as a win.

++

++

They forget that the shoot ever happened by that following Wednesday, which is perfectly fine by Yeosang, whose work literally haunts him at every waking moment. Science takes up so much of his brain that he periodically startles himself awake in the middle of the night with an idea, writes it down on the notepad by his bedside, and wakes up to unintelligible scribbles with biology terms thrown in here and there. He's been dealing with this particularly difficult immunity project that's had him cooped up in the lab for longer than he'd like to admit. Things are supposed to go one way but then all of a sudden the data points start saying ‘fuck you’ so the tests have to be done all over again to check if it's a bad sample or a legitimate error and then they all start coming out funny and at this point, Yeosang is ready to throw the diplomas hanging on his wall out the window, and then throw himself out after them.

Sighing, he shakes the mouse to wake his screen back up. His computer keeps making these hiccup noises as it tries for the fourth hour to figure out what in the world is going on while the printer spits out graphs that look like swiss cheese, and the whole thing kind of makes him want to cry.

_Bzzzt_

_Bzzzt_

Sighing, he flips over his old Android.

XXXXXX1102: Hey! Wanna go get dinner?

XXXXXX1102: My treat!!!

At this point, he would rather have Wooyoung drive his beat up Rav4 straight through the wall of the lab and run him over, but he doubts his best friend would agree to that so food sounds like a great second option. It's been-- _7:40_ \-- over six hours since he last ate, and he can practically hear his mother scolding him for it.

XXXXXX0615: Sure. I'm in the lab

XXXXXX1102: Oof

XXXXXX1102: Be there in 15

Fifteen minutes is enough for him to print out all of his test presets and pray that his coworkers will point out a dumb but fixable error when they come in tomorrow morning and see his doomsday-esque scribbles littering the whiteboard. He clears off his station, mentally double checks that everything is in order, and locks the door behind him. With his newfound freedom, Yeosang makes like a bat out of hell and tells Wooyoung to kick it before the place eats their souls.

"Rough day?" he smirks, fully knowing that every day is a trial and a half. 

"Weird day." Yeosang tells him about how he tried to recreate an old study's method and it went absolutely nowhere, and once they'd hunted down the original researches they had a whole Time trying to set it up. The only time he stops to take a breath is to thank Wooyoung when he opens the door to the restaurant; a cozy little Italian place nestled in the outskirts of town. Wooyoung talks a bit about his job at the office and then, and only then, does fold his hands and look Yeosang dead on, and oh no, this can't mean anything good.

“So,” Wooyoung says, handing the menu to the waiter, “Let me say all of this before you decide whether or not you want to kill me.”

Yeosang’s eyes flick up from where he’d been looking at the ice in his coffee. That was one hell of a way to start a sentence, and if he knows Wooyoung, which he does, this is going to register in the 7-10 range on the Disaster Scale.

“So about that photoshoot...”

++

++

Yeosang is a generally non-problematic person. He goes to work. He goes home. Sometimes he goes out on the weekends to play DnD with his friends. He does _not_ commit murder unless it’s because Wooyoung sheepishly tells him that the producers liked his shoot so much that they decided to do two full pages and a whole centerfold of just him.

Yeosang pinches the bridge of his nose.

 _There really_ is _no such thing as a free dinner._

“I'm sorry, I _what_?” His eyebrows are coming close to meeting his hairline, lips in a straight line. He blinks rapidly in a mix of disbelief and rage. Wooyoung sits back in his chair as though this wasn't possibly a huge wrench in his life plans.

“You should be honored! It’s a really big accomplishment to get that on your first run!”

“Wooyoung, what are my colleagues going to say?” Yeosang can already see their very confused and moderately horrified expressions, followed by the soft whisper of the rumor mill churning every time he exited the room

“Oh please, they’ll never find out.”

“That’s not the point!” He does his best not to raise his voice, but the combination of the heavy soup and the spiraling implications are getting the best of him. Wooyoung hands back the check without looking away from his raging friend, now panicking over how he could possibly explain this away if anyone were to ask.

“Can I at least show you how it turned out?”

Yeosang wants to kill him. 

He really does. 

But the puppy dog eyes and the hopeful smile and the fact that he now has nutrients in his system and doesn't feel like the embodiment of death has made him complacent. 

"Fine." he agrees, and Wooyoung does a fist pump in the air, "but that doesn't mean I'm not angry." 

++

++

Ok, all things considered, it's not _bad_. Nestled into his bed, he can fully appreciate the production value and the creativity that went into the set. The lighting and the props were well-chosen and they add just enough contrast to make the whole vision come together. Plus, he's only one model amongst maybe a hundred others, so it's not like he'll be picked out immediately. He'd only gotten the courage now to look through the entire book out of fear that he would stand out like a sore thumb. It's still surreal to see himself wearing.... _that,_ but if he can focus on everything besides himself, it isn't the worst.

Of course, it's difficult to ignore himself because he’s literally the subject of the photos, but still.

_Bzzt_

_Bzzt_

Yeosang turns over his free hand, his other one still occupied with his magazine.

**Park_Mars** liked your photo!

Yeosang's eyebrows furrow at the username. It isn't one he recognizes, but it looks like they have a lot of mutual friends? He clicks on the icon to open up the profile. It doesn't have a lot of pictures, mostly just artwork and a few outdated photos, but the first first picture looks kind of fam- OH NO NO NONONO

His blood freezes in his veins.

“Wooyoung,” his voice falters, “Did you show anyone?”

“Show the what?” Wooyoung yells from his room across the hall. 

“The magazine.” he clarifies, now scrolling through the sparse posts of artwork with a few horrible scenarios playing out in his mind.

“Just this one guy, San, from my office." he says, and Wooyoung starts talking about how they had to move to a new office and the guy across the way started talking to him, which is all fine and dandy except Yeosang isn’t listening. He tries to recount every person he's ever met with ‘San’ in their name who might have been around in high school. Wait, high school?

San.... San-and-Seonghwa, _that_ San?

Yeosang whips out his phone and brushes off the metaphorical dust from his Facebook account. His eyes never leave the screen as he uncoils himself from his bed and makes his way over to Wooyoung's. God, he hasn't spoken to most of his ‘friends’ in over five, six years. He hasn't spoken to San or Seonghwa in years. Then again, he never really spoke to Seonghwa besides working with him on that one group project and that other time he prefers to not remember... 

“This one?”

Wooyoung rockets up, propping himself against the mass of pillow on his bed. “Oh my god! Yeah!!! You know him?”

He doesn't feel like it's himself speaking when he answers, “We went to high school together.”

“Waaaah, small world, huh?”

Small world indeed; one that he thought he'd left behind when he'd entered college. It was meant to be a time to remake his image into the person he'd been too nervous to be in high school. His seventeen year old self had been so caught up with making sure that other people liked him and that his parents were happy with his work that he wasn't really himself. It was like he was extension of someone's arm, and while the praise kept him satisfied in high school, nothing could compare to the freedom of being his own person. 

Yeosang flops back down in his own room on his bed. 

For that reason he remembers Park Seonghwa, and how he was free to be the rebel he wanted to be, and how envious Yeosang had been. He had this untouchably cool aura to him that gave him the same level of respect the other high-achievers had without the burden of appearance. His image was whatever he wanted it to be because he made the 'other' his own. There was a time when new kids would literally be pulled out of his way when he walked down the hall because there was no such thing as just talking to Seonghwa- even breathing in his general direction was considered risky. Rumor had it that he had been a target for bullies way earlier on, but he'd so ruthlessly verbally annihilated them that they switched schools and needed therapy. His sharp tongue and good looks made him the human equivalent of a deadly viper and damn, Yeosang would be lying to himself if he said he hadn't been intrigued by the whole bad boy persona. 

But pre-lifechanging-discovery-of-self Yeosang was from a different circle- a whole separate echelon- back then and Seonghwa wasn't the kind to entertain high school social politics. He wouldn't even look perfect angel Yeosang in the eye back then. 

But here he was, out of the blue. What reason would he have--

_Shit._

Shitshitshit this is bad. His eyes flick back and forth sorting scenarios from least to most disastrous and picking out the ones with a high probability of actually happening in his real, cursed life. He springs up from his seat and catches himself on the doorframe. 

“Wooyoung I love you and I need to know if San showed it to Seonghwa.”

"To who?"

"His brother."

"He has a brother?" The initial panic is starting to wear off leaving only the tired, resigned part behind. Yeosang lets out a heavy sigh. 

"Wooyoung, focus." 

“Fine, fine. Why is it so important? I mean even if he's seen it, I doubt he'll expose himself like that.”

“So I know if I need to find a nuclear reactor to throw myself into.”

Wooyoung scoffs, “You're being dramatic, And besides, have you seen yourself? You probably blessed his eyes.”

“WOOYOUNG.”

“Ok, ok I got it.”

He whips out his phone and makes a sort of ducklip face as he sends out a text at blinding speed. The second it’s back in his pocket, it vibrates and he reads off the message.

“He said ‘no, why?’”

Yeosang's eyes flutter closed. The world is good. Everything is right in the universe. No need to get himself worked up when San is the only one who knows, and while that isn't great, one person knowing is better than two. The fewer the people to see him in lingerie, the better. "Perfect. That's great. Can you make him promise to not show it?

Wooyoung texts back at the same lightning speed, but it takes an agonizing twenty seconds for San to reply saying that he'd hidden the magazine in an area of his room that Seonghwa is never near. 

The phone slips back into his pocket.“You're thinking too much.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you're right.” Yeosang shakes out his hands to stop himself from fully panicking. "I'm just worried about people making dumb judgments."

“But I mean even if they did, you're one hot-”

Yeosang tackles him into the mattress, intent on kicking Wooyoung in the ass he was so proud of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep saying I'll proofread and I never do


	3. Pure Like Snowflakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> San manages to ask Wooyoung on a date, and this has everything to do with Seonghwa because he needs to be there as San's emotional support. Come on! Isn't that what brothers are for?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really want to start writing consistently again. It'll probably go back to being Friday updates

He doesn’t log into Instagram for the next two weeks. No, Seonghwa hasn't told San why there’s a big crack in his phone, and no, he doesn’t plan to. Maybe one day he'll let it slip when he's old and senile, but for now he can only hope the gods are merciful. For once, Seonghwa is glad that his little brother has the attention span of a mayfly and is fully committing himself to whatever hairbrained scheme he's cooked up for winning Wooyoung’s heart. What was it again?

“--- which would involve me driving out to Jeolla-do, but if I have to pick up the flowers then I might not have time. _But ,_ I could try to coordinate getting someone else to pick up dessert-”

Ah, right, they were at this part.

“And you’re trying to coordinate this for when?” Seonghwa asks, forehead flat against the kitchen table. He’d just come in to check how much milk they had, maybe grab himself a bowl of cereal like the unhealthy adult-in-training he was, and stream the movie he’s been waiting for on Netflix; not San jumping out of his room with four spreadsheets detailing this ~~kidnapping~~ ‘date’ he was planning.

“Friday, after work.”

“Mhmm... And he agreed to this or do you intend on bamboozling him?”

San guffaws, “I mean I don’t _want_ to bamboozle him-”

Oh god not this again....

“ _San_.” he says pointedly, “we are not having a repeat of when you brought Jinh-”

“I know I know! No need to bring _him_ up.” It’s like his words are tripping over one another as they race out of his mouth. Despite the discomfort, San presses on, “I’m going to ask him today. Or maybe tomorrow. Like super casual. Like ‘hey, wanna grab dinner?’ because I probably don't have enough time to execute plans 2 or 4. Do you think it will work?”

“I’m not a good judge of these things.”

“I know, but still-” his phone buzzes on the countertop, San feeling around for it while still describing how he's got this under control (he doesn't) and how it's foolproof (it isn't) at lightning speed. He's at the part where he somehow magically convinces Wooyoung to come over to their hosue when he actually reads the text and his face falls. “Uh oh.”

Seonghwa turns his head so his cheek is resting on the table, the eye not covered by his bangs peering up. “I don't like that sentence, especially coming from you.”

“Wooyoung. He wants to know if I showed the magazine to anyone.” He replies with one hand, phone buzzing again. “Says Yeosang is paranoid.”

Seonghwa can’t see himself, but he imagines his complexion has gone pale enough to give the Grudge a run for her money. If Yeosang knows that San saw it and is worried, then he must be aware of who San is, and by proxy, who he is. But that's impossible, isn't it? As long as Wooyoung didn't show him a photo, it would be impossible for him to know that this San is the same guy he knew in high school. It could be anyone, for all he knows.

Right?

“He doesn't know though...?” His body tilts forward as though they were sharing a secret. San shakes his head ‘no’.

“I didn't tell him.” San texts Wooyoung back. His phone vibrates again, and this time he turns his phone so Seonghwa can see. 

XXXXXX1102: Hey, sorry to bother you so late

XXXXXX1102: Did you show anyone the magazine?

XXXXXX0710: No, why?

XXXXXX1102: Yeosang's paranoid, just trying to calm him down :)

XXXXXX0710: Awww that's sweet of you. My lips are sealed

XXXXXX1102: uwu

XXXXXX1102: wait hold on

XXXXXX1102: Yeosang wants you to promise that you won't show anyone

“Promise him.” Seonghwa babbles, “He doesn't know. He doesn't need to know.”

San gives him a look like maybe he shouldn't be wrapping himself up in lies, and he's definitely right because his reaction is childish at best, intentionally deceitful at worst, but Seonghwa has never claimed to be brave and he doesn't want to know what Yeosang would say if he ever found out.

“Fine..." he answers, typing back something long into his phone.

Wooyoung texts back a 'thank you’ and San sends back something that puts a content smile on his face. Crisis averted, Seonghwa is drained by the emotional rollercoaster but hey- at least his heart isn't thundering in his chest anymore.

“Well... That’s enough excitement for me. I'm going to bed." he announces, much to San's panic.

“Wait! I'm still not done with sub-item 4a!!!”

San looks around for something, giving Seonghwa enough time to escape by the skin of his teeth. Footsteps pond behind until they reach the closed, locked door to the bedroom. 

“Awww come on, hyung! I need this to be perfect, or how else am I going to convince Wooyoung to marry me?” he whines, but Seonghwa is already too invested in ducking into his covers. The coziness and warm embrace of sleepiness is too strong to beat.

“Good _night_ , San!”

++

++

Seonghwa is pretty sure he didn't raise San to slam doors in this household but here he is, barrelling inside like an overgrown deer, slamming the door behind him with his foot so he can scream whatever he had to say immediately.

“HYUNG!!!” He bellows, and Seonghwa sighs at the impending headache. Footsteps pound up the steps with the intensity of a stampede and the door to his room punches open with enough force to make him want to verbally apologize to it. “He said yes!”

“The wh--? Oh! Wooyoung!!!”

San nods furiously in a _mhmm mhmm mhmm_ and squishes his own cheeks in delight.

And Seonghwa is....

Wow.

This is a pleasantly surprising development, if he's being perfectly honest. He was expecting to never hear about Wooyoung again after this stunt because San, though loud and exuberant, was a Runner by nature. He cared so much about everyone and their opinions and feelings that he wore himself out trying to make others happy, and if that didn't work out, he would gladly take never seeing the person again over bumbling his way through criticisms.

“That's great, I'm happy for you. Where are you planning on taking him?”

San stops his enthused bouncing to give him a doe-eyed, head-tilted stare. “What?”

A pause. “...for... for dinner...?”

“Oh my god, I completely forgot to mention that!” San runs out of the rooms and sometimes, like now, Seonghwa wonders how that kid made it to his exams on time and graduated when he his short-term memory loop lasted all of about 14 seconds.

“GWA!!!!” He yells from his room, loud enough for the neightbors in 2D to justifiably file another noise complaint, “WHICH PLACE SHOULD I TAKE HIM TO?!”

He takes a deep breath.

“NOT TOO FANCY THAT HE FEELS INTIMIDATED BUT NOT TOO RELAXED THAT HE THINKS YOU DIDN’T TRY!!!”

“SO I'M TAKING HIM TO PACIFICA???”

“I DON’T KNOW! ASK HIM ABOUT IT!”

The neighbors in 1C start banging on the ceiling as a universal sign of BE QUIET, but for all Seonghwa cares they can go get trenchfoot- this is important business they're taking care of.

“HE SAID YES!” San yells, knocking several things off his nightstand, and Seonghwa congratulates him because he's proud that he had the courage to ask.

The officer who shows up 20 minutes later doesn't really care about that, just that they keep it down because it's after midnight and people are trying to sleep, but that's ok. Seonghwa still counts it as a win.

++

++

Half of the meetings he attends are awful. There’s literally no point in him being there since he doesn't do any of the finances. Seonghwa's eyelids grow heavy as they argue for what must be the four millionth time about which pieces they want to bring to the convention and how much merch they need to preorder by Saturday and other things that he has no control over, though if they don't stop being petty he’ll get up and walk out because the rival shop would be more than happy to hire him and the crew there seems tolerable. His phone vibrates in his hand, startling him awake.

XXXXXX0710: Hyung I need your help

XXXXXX0710: Hyung are you free tonight

XXXXXX0710: Hyung I swear to the bright lights of the UFO’s I will do anything if you

Seonghwa stares dumbly at the messages, more joining them as San electronically yells to him in ‘frantic’, then uses the series of vibrations as his ticket to get out of the meeting because it’s important, he's gotta take this call, sorry guys, be back in a minute. The fresh air hits him and he internally cheers for the freedom, and San is still sending messages because Seonghwa hasn't responded. He _is_ free, technically, but whatever this was would be cutting into his personal time of watching YouTube videos until he passed out and pulling him away from the art projects he’d been keeping on the back burner. Plus, he can only imagine how disastrous this will be if San is left without adult supervision.

XXXXXX0402: Who died

XXXXXX0710: Oh thank goodness

XXXXXX0710: I need you to do something for me

San goes into a long explanation about how he needs emotional assistance, preferrably immediately, and Seonghwa doesn't bother to yell a goodbye over the now-shouting match overtaking the breakroom. Copious amount of rainbow hearts and sickeningly, excessively, tooth-rottingly cute stickers stream onto his screen as his black 1979 T140 roars to life underneath him.

XXXXXX0710: Hyung you're a lifesaver!!!

XXXXXX0710: See you soon!!!!!!

He regrets this already.

++

++

His keys swing open with the door, Seonghwa recoiling a bit as he’s met with a full set of dimples and a booming voice.

“Oh my god! Just in time!” San turns to shout into the living room, “Guys! He’s here!!!”

Two figures appear from behind the partition with friendly smiles and neat, classy attire. One of them is saying something, probably a greeting, that he can't hear.

The other is an angel.

 _Oh I get it,_ Seonghwa thinks, shaking Kang Yeosang’s hand as Wooyoung gives an abbreviated introduction that does him no justice, h _e’s_ ** _trying_** _to kill me_

Yeosang watches him with eyes glowing amber from the kitchen light, and Seonghwa is pretty sure he blacked out for a second because he doesn't remember letting go of his (soft. so soft. This guy must have hand lotion and a killer routine) (God, now is not the time, Seonghwa! Focus!) hand and putting his bag down by where their shoes were normally in a heap.

“It's nice to meet you”

He's still recovering from his initial shock but manages to put together a friendly smile, though by the way Yeosang is looking at him, he can't tell if he's staring like a psychopath or if he has indigestion or what. If there’s even a hint that he’s super creeped out, Seonghwa will not hesitate to whip out Preplanned Excuse #3 and defenestrate himself on command.

“You too. I think we went to the same high school together though?”

Evacuate! Evacuate! He knows!!! Briefly remembering every embarrassing thing he’s ever done ever, Seonghwa copies and pastes San's laid back yet attentive posture.

“Yeah, I thought I recognized you. Didn't want to say anything in case it wasn't you. That would've been awkward." _Not like it wasn't already awkward, but good job Seonghwa, you haven't said anything mortifying yet._

By some miracle, San's stomach chooses that exact moment to let out an earth-shaking growl, to which Wooyoung responds with an enthusiastic ‘let's go!’. Seonghwa finds himself strapped into the driver's seat, thankful to have a distraction so he doesn't spontaneously combust.

++

++

He doesn't say much on their drive through town, but that’s ok because Wooyoung is loud. Like _super_ loud. It's like having two San's except instead of two dolphins, he's got a dolphin and a hyena. He's got the same back-and-forth pattern of jumping from topic to topic that keeps the conversation on the move. Seonghwa's got Hozier in the CD changer and it calms him down enough to focus on the way Yeosang's chin rests perfectly on his hand, preoccupied with watching the people on the street. Only one person almost kills them today; a lower number than the usual three on a daily basis or the 5+ on weekends and holidays who have zero business operating a 2-ton hunk of metal. San piles out from his side and opens the door for Wooyoung while Seonghwa taps on the glass to tell Yeosang that he should get out on the same side since it's safer.

Pacifica was one of those places that had the potential to be fancy depending on what the guest wore. There's one table of men in one corner who look like they came straight from their office. There's another with a group of high school kids in jeans and t-shirts. They've got a few families coming in for special events, some workers off-duty hanging out at the bar, and then there's them. The waitress gives the group a once over- probably because they look like the four horsemen of the e-boy-pocalypse- while they slide onto benches, San and Seonghwa on one bench across from Wooyoung and Yeosang. The conversation pauses for a second to thank her for menus and picks up immediately after as though it never stopped. 

“What have you been up to recently?” Seonghwa's eyes peek over the menu to where Yeosang is looking at him around his own folio.

I’m a tattoo artist at a studio in town.” He puts on a smile to smother the residential haunting of Mrs. Choi and Professor Kang telling him that it was a waste of his time and he would regret his body art when he got older. Those two were the kind of bitter people the world could have done without.

“That's really cool! I can see you have... um...” he motions up and down his arms to indicate Seonghwa's full sleeves, and right, yeah, those. Should've definitely covered those with different sleeves, but it's too late for that.

“Oh! Uh, right...”

A flash of embarrassment creeps through him, slinking around his torso. It was easy to forget that not everyone was into the macabre, and the niche he belonged to was so knee-deep in the obscure that it seemed so _normal_ to him now. Maybe it was foolish to think Yeosang wouldn't be freaked out by the intense linework and dark imagery.

“It's my personal cabinet of curiosities." Seonghwa says, questioning his word choice. Ugh, God, why was he so bad at talking? They need to not talk about this so he doesn't embarrass himself any further with his inability to use the Korean language. “What about you? You were like... the smartest kid in high school.”

Seonghwa clamps down on his tongue. Should he not have said that? Is it bad that he remembers that? God, he’ll 106 himself into a pocket dimension if he screws this up.

“I work in a research lab, sort of like genetics testing but there are a lot of projects going on at any one time. It's not too interesting but I enjoy it.” he ends the sentence by looking away, as though embarrassed, though for what reason Seonghwa can't tell. That's so impressive, like who else could casually flex his brainpower like that?

“Sounds like the start of a horror movie." he laughs.

“We actually talk about that a lot, like Resident Evil- type situation.”

“You've seen it?” his heart leaps, mouth opened in a surprised smile like a kid seeing fireworks for the first time. Yeosang's posture immediately deflates, the man sitting back into his chair with a scoff.

“Pfft, only about a hundred times!”

++

++

A fight almost breaks out when the check hits the table. It's San and Wooyoung’s 'date’ which automatically means that San is going to pay for Wooyoung, regardless of how much the latter insists otherwise. Seonghwa takes thirty seconds to debate whether he should offer to pay for Yeosang (Is that too forward? Would it be rude to not offer?), but he sees a card sticking out from the top of the booklet and Yeosang recording a Snapchat of the two throwing the strangest and oddly endearing threats at one another. Seonghwa tucks his card neatly next to Yeosang's, San putting his own in the opposite pocket as he agrees to let Wooyoung to buy dessert next time. The waitress eyes them all again and she does a poor job at hiding her smile when she realizes that the two receipts under the one card means someone is getting taken care of. The staff tell them to have a goodnight. Seonghwa drives them all back and oddly enough, it's easy talking to them. He and Yeosang go back to their heated debate over the state of tropes in film to the point where they stay outside the car in the parking lot and then stand in the front door together just so they can continue their conversation until 11:00, when they decide they can pick up this conversation another time, though Seonghwa shouldn't take this as a victory since Yeosang has more than a few aces up his sleeve. 

“Have a good night! Get home safe!” Seonghwa waves, watching them go down the stairs, out to the car, going, going, aaaaaaaaannnnd-

“ _SAN_. Let's chat.” He spins on his heels and walk dead on towards him. San matches his steps as he backs away from his slowly-approaching sibling.

“So here's a thought," Holding up his hands in the ‘surrender’ position, “don't kill me?”

_That's it!!!_ Seonghwa takes off after him, catching the cackling San when he makes the critical error of looking behind him. 

“I! Can't! Believe! You!!! Could you have warned me?!” Each word is punctuated by a punch in the shoulder. "I hope I didn't scare him."

"You didin't." he says, rolling his eyes fondly, but Seonghwa shrinks down into a little squatted ball right there in their living room. 

“Are you sure? I whipped out the Twilight Zone. Was that too much? I feel like I talked his ear off. Do you think I weirded him out?”

“Woah!” hands up, San sidesteps him with expert precision, “And I thought I was nervous. You're fine. And you two seemed to hold a conversation where Woo and I could talk without having to worry.”

“Oh so it's ‘Woo’ now?” he teases, and immediately prepares for impact.

San throws a pillow at him, then another, then an entire sofa cushion.

It doesn't do anything to stop him from blushing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I PRESSED POST TOO EARLY


	4. The Pages Inbetween

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's bold. It's risky.  
> He decides to go for it.  
> “Let's go see what happens." 
> 
> Seonghwa's eyes go wide and sparkle.
> 
> “Oh my god, let's."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I'm trying to be an adult and make a writing schedule but I"ve got a lot of projects to wrangle. Hopefully the next chapter won't take as long. This version of C4 is like... three versions of the same events strung together, so if there are inconsistencies, I'm sorry and I'll find them eventually 
> 
> Also there's a place called Barcade in the city that's like an arcade with a bar and that's where I imagined them to be going on this fine Saturday evening.

San has been a fixture in Wooyoung's- and by proxy, Yeosang's- life for two months and four days now, and the only reason he knows that is because Wooyoung denied that it was 'that serious' and that San probably didn't like him like that and Yeosang had nearly given up all hope.

Wooyoung and Yeosang don't talk as much anymore, and it's mainly because Wooyoung tends to get sidetracked by San, who seems to require constant stimulation when texting, while Yeosang is content sitting on the back burner for a few minutes longer. That isn't a bad thing, per se- Wooyoung is smiling at 100 kilowatts more often than not- but it does mean Yeossang is down one conversation partner and that he spends more time destroying his eardrums with loud rock music than interacting with the outside world like a normal human. 

Wooyoung and San have some sort of ASMR thing that they want to try which requires total silence ("But I am silent!" "The sun is good for you! I'll text you later!") so he's out and about. It's not the kind of housemate exile he'd ever expected- usually, he gets three eggplant emojis in his inbox and Yeosang sends back a singular thumbs up and does a 180 to wait in the local ice cream shop or the downtown center, but he's 5000% ok with it. He's chosen the fashion district today, a few blocks along a wide road with a park nearby and some cafes in case the ASMR session goes disastrous and they need him to stay out for a few more hours. 

He's hitting Nine Lives Consignment since digging through the racks will probably eat up a lot of time. It's a bit like treasure diving in there, and sometimes he finds some great steals and other times he comes back empty handed. It's in the middle of the third block, right in the heart of the strip. The stores out here rotate pretty often. Yeosang looks through the window displays as he walks past. There's a new Vans outlet next to some kind of lingerie store with female mannequins adorned in pretty pink lace and white silk shorts and fluffy pastel robes, and next to those is a bakery. 

He's scouting his Instagram feed to look for inspiration, debating whether or not this bright turquoise and pink sweater would be a good purchase, because on the one hand he could use it as a statement piece but on the other hand what could he even match it with, which is probably why he doesn't notice a figure approaching him. 

He doesn't hear the words, but he knows something's being said, and when he removes one of his earbuds, Yeosang realizes it's his name. 

"Oh!" There's blood rushing to his face, he just knows it, a consequence of being this close to Seonghwa, who's doing a little sort of wave as not to startle Yeosang too badly. His music is still blaring into one side of his head and the other man can definitely hear the thunderous sound of I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE coming out of the one in his hand. He pulls out the plug to get his Spotify to stop. 

“-sn't expecting to see you here!” his tone is upbeat, but it's still tired. Seonghwa's got on a black sweater with two different colored sleeves that's two sizes two big for him. It's so big, in fact, that the edges of his tattoos are peeking out from where the neckline is drooping. "How are you?"

"I'm good! Just... hanging out. Wooyoung and San are up to some shennanigans so I'm exiled for now." Seonghwa gives him a look, and Yeosang wants to throw himself into a black hole because did he really just imply that? "I mean like a recording! They wanted total silence." 

"Aaaahhh... cool, cool..." He says, nodding his head. Neither of them say anything for a minute, which is a clear sign that it's going to get more awkward unless he acts this instant. 

"You, uh--" _Come on, you can do it..._ his brain is going too fast to send intelligent thought down to his mouth, "you work around here?" 

It seems to be the right thing because he brightens right away, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder.

"Yeah, down the street, actually! I was passing by on my way for coffee and thought 'huh, that guy looks familiar'. Do you want- I mean, you look like you're kinda in the middle of something, but I'm gonna be at the cafe for a bit if you want to come?"

Yeosang's head involuntarily quirks to the side. 

His first reaction is to say no. It's always been that way. While Yeosang is historically good at tolerating forced interaction, navigating friendly past times like this could be tricky because he was expected to engage and it's not like he could rely on the conversation and ideas of others to fill in the gaps, and the prospect still made him a little nervous. He could go along with what Seonghwa already pointed out- he's in the middle of something, and while it isn't really a big deal if he thrifts now or never, he has the option to turn him down with some soft-handed apology, and Seonghwa will accept it. 

But...

It was fun last time, even if it was unexpected and a little stressful. There's something about him that's easy to be around, one that understands where Yeosang is coming from when he shares bits and pieces of himself that he tends to keep hidden because Seonghwa just _accepts_ these facts like little gifts, no judgement. And he hasn't had something like that in a long time- the only person he trusts with such delicate things is Wooyoung, who also knows that Yeosang jumped out of a window one time when he was 12 because he had a brief obsession with spies and also once fistfought a kid for making Yeosang cry when they were 8. Maybe his habits tell him to say no and to keep himself at a distance, but a little tug in the bottom of his stomach tells him to take a chance. 

"Just give me a minute to pay for these, then I'll be set!" 

++

They stand by the pickup window, away from the napkin and straw station so customers can go about their business without having to reach around the two. They share a couple of memes, Yeosang eventually asking for his Instagram since asking for a phone number seemed too straightforward. He almost gives himself a heart attack when he remembers that his Recent Searches still has Seonghwa's name in it, but luckily Seonghwa tells him to search up Park Mars, underscore in between, and Yeosang busies himself with typing so he doesn't give himself away. The overwhelmed barista (poor kid must’ve gotten ditched on the afternoon rush) calls his name and slides his drink across the counter, the cup of what Yeosang recognizes as his half-finished latte in her other hand. Yeosang asks about his tattooing is going, to which Seonghwa answers that he doesn't have anyone scheduled and that they usually close up early on Fridays and Saturdays so the drunk college kids don't come in.

“I was going to take a walk. It's pretty nice, if you have the time?” he says, and Yeosang is thankful to be given another out, but according to his parents who call every Wednesday and Sunday he can't be a mole child forever (as much as he refuses to believe it).

So Yeosang is walking. 

Honestly? Hasn't done this in a while. 

The little walkway outside of the office walks by too many windows and he doesn't like being surrounded by people at work. It feels like people are watching him. Judging him. Eugh. It's bad planning, if anyone were to ask him, but they don't because he's a cog in the corporate machine, blasted capitalism. 

“Do you usually go that coffee shop?

“I usually keep myself heavily-oh my god, is that--???”

Yeosang feels a trickle of coffee makes its way down his windpipe but forces himself to finish so so he doesn't spray his friend (Friend???). Seonghwa is batting at his arm, eyes glued to whatever is across the street, and following his gaze he can make San's mess of curly black hair shaking wildly as the body attached to it makes wild hand gestures to a silver-haired Wooyoung whose open, laughing mouth is taking up most of his face. 

“What are they doing here? Did you-?” he shakes his head. “And neither did I...” 

It feels like Mission Impossible, being so close yet remaining unseen. No one could have anticipated Seonghwa spotting him and so neither San nor Wooyoung have bothered to keep an eye out. He's watching like a fixed crow eyeing something shiny. He wonders, could it hurt to get a little closer? 

It's bold. It's risky.   
He decides to go for it. 

“Let's go see what happens." 

Seonghwa's eyes go wide and sparkle.

“Oh my god, let's." 

++

2:30 and all is well. No one has tried to fight anyone. 

It looks like a lunch date, as cliche as that might be, but Yeosang can't find it in him to be mad. Wooyoung looks more flustered than that one time their friend Rocky brought his hyung, Moonbin, and he panicked hardcore over the guy's IFBB pro-type physique. He's laughing hard and brushing the hair out of his eyes every 10 seconds, which is good for San because it means he has a fighting chance.

“San's nervous.” Seonghwa whispers beside him. He isn't sure why the other man would be whispering-it's not like anyone would be paying close attention to them. Sure, they looked like to cokeheads hiding behind some shrubbery, but it's in the name of love and Yeosang would gladly explain that if anyone bothered to ask.

"So is Woo." 

Seonghwa and Yeosang are sitting in chairs behind mini-trees in the bookstore positioned not-quote-across from where WooSan are drinking classic sodas and still talking, peeking less and less often since they've ordered desert and it doesn't look like they're going anywhere. With so much good content around, it's only natural that they each picked up a heavy book and start discussing them. Might as well enjoy themselves while on damage control, right? 

"The fourth book is where things really get going, th- _wait a minute_." his tone shifts from excited to deathly serious, his gaze darkening narrowed eyes, and it's like this Seonghwa is a completely different person. He's like a hunter, and Yeosang briefly remembers seeing this version many years ago, walking down the hall and never looking anywhere but straight ahead through long, dark bangs which seemed to cover his entire face. This was the dangerous version he'd forgotten existed, the one which had never really left, only laid dormant until it rustled in its sleep and showed itself on Seonghwa's face. "Wooyoung sees you." 

"Wh-?"

"Don't look, you'll make it too obvious." he hisses. 

"What are we gonna do?" Yeosang whispers, as if they weren't in a completely different building. 

"On the count of three, we run out the back. Just follow me, there's a park and we can hide in there."

He chances a glance over to where Wooyoung is back to talking, but is now looking over every few seconds, and thank goodness Wooyoung's eyesight is horrible otherwise he'd definitely be calling. 

"Ok."

"3...2..." Seonghwa waits until Wooyoung has looked, looked away, then looked before grabbing Yeosang by the wrist and pulling them both out of their seats, through the store, and bursting out into an alley behind. 

++

Of all the things Yeosang expected to be doing today, running like the wind away from his best friend and his date with best friend's date's brother was not what he intended, but looking at himself squatting in partial darkness, he can't say he regrets it. It's going to make for one hell of a story, if Wooyoung doesn't end his life when they get back. 

Seonghwa is on lookout, the bag of clothes left with some very confused but very understanding kids who seemed to be ok with looking after their things if it meant they got to record one grown man scaling a tree at record speeds and another man making like a troll and vanishing underneath a small bridge. Time seems to crawl by in the relative silence. He could have been in there for ten minutes or maybe forty- he doesn't know. Yeosang takes out his phone. 

**KangGeumSang** : Is the coast clear?

It vibrates a second later. 

**Park_Mars** : I think so

Perfect timing, the walls were starting to scratch his back. Yeosang carefully maneuvers himself on shaky legs, step, step, _**splash!**_

The water doesn't soak into him all at once. 

For a moment, it's like he's encased in a layer of cold, then a second later and he can feel lake water seeping into every part of him. It's warm with the shining sun, but coming out he feels and looks like a wet cat. Seonghwa manages to convince the young mother Yeosang accidentally scares to not call the police, claiming a very elaborate, high-stakes game of hide and seek. She looks at them like they're crazy because at this point, it's just a fact of life- no one stays in a concrete storm drain unless they're on drugs and/or convinced aliens are coming to get them. 

"Are you ok?" 

"Yeah..." he looks at himself, then at Seonghwa, who has twigs and pieces of bark stuck in his hair like a real-lfie bird's nest. "Guess I won't be able to hide this from Wooyoung, huh?"

There's no way Wooyoung won't ask questions. He's naturally inquisitive, and wearing at least two pounds of water, there's no way he'll escape unnoticed. He's going to leave puddles in the walkway and everything!

Seonghwa lets out a long 'yeah, I guess you're right' sigh, but then startles, putting his hands up as his mental lightbulb goes off. "Your clothes! The ones you bought from the thrift store!" 

The realization dawns on Yeosang like a bubble popping in his chest. "Yes! You're a genius!!!" 

++

Seonghwa drops him off just in time to beat Wooyoung home. Yeosang sees the familiar RAV4 round the corner, letting out San so he can go to his own car parked across the street before moving into the private lot on the side of their building. Wooyoung probably has no idea that that was Seonghwa under the helmet, and while San could spot Seonghwa's motorcycle anywhere, he doesn't recognize the thrifted outfit he's borrowed. Yeosang rolls onto the couch, tucking himself in a passable attempt at a sleeping position in the hopes that it'll stop the impending interrogation.

"SANGIE! WHAT WERE YOU--!!!" Yeosang looks up at him with wide eyes, expectant, but Wooyoung is looking at him with the utmost confusion, staring blatantly at his clothes and oh my god, Wooyoung has no idea that Yeosang underwent an outfit change. As far as he knows, Yeosang slipped out this morning while he was in the bathroom, and he was wearing a horribly pink and turqoise sweater and black pants and not jeans and a whie longsleeve, like he'd thought. Wooyoung is definitely second guessing himself- Yeosang wouldn't be able to walk out in public unnoticed based on the sheer wavelength of his outfit- so maybe the person he saw was just a dead ringer. "oh.... um..."

Yeosang does the innocent look left, look up, head tilt combo to give off the air of confusion. 

"When did you get back?"

"Um..." _Hnng_ he didn't think of that. Yeosang checks his watch, buying himself some time. When had they seen Wooyoung out? An hour? Yeah, that has to be it. "Not long, like forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, who knows." 

Wooyoung nods, still trying to decide whether or not to grill Yeosang, which means he won't because when Wooyoung isn't sure of himself, he doesn't venture too far from things he's comfortable with. 

"How was your thingy? The ASMR?" He asks to distract from him picking up his phone. He sends out a quick text to Seonghwa, who's the the third person in his Messenger. 

**KangGeumSang** : He doesn't know

"Right!" his perks up. "It was good! We had a lot of fun. We ate tteokbokki and it made this really weird sound, and we tried a few other things..." 

Based on his tone, he isn't entirely convinced, but he won't push the subject further and as long as Yeosang doesn't give him a reason to ask, he won't. Seonghwa will give him back his clothes and it'll be like it never happened. 

**Park_Mars** : Your things are in the wash

 **Park_Mars** : San walked in and yelled AHA but then stared at me and walked away

 **Park_Mars** : Mission success!

Yeosang laughs to himself. Maybe one day he'll let Wooyoung know that he isn't completely insane, but for now, he'll sit on the feeling. He has another idea, a lip bite-inducing idea, and if today was any indication, getting those isn't a good thing. 

**KangGeumSang** : I had a lot of fun, we should do it again some time!

 **KangGeumSang:** Without the falling in the lake part though haha

Yeosang puts his phone face down to stop himself from compulsively checking. He waits the agonizing minutes for Seonghwa to respond, wondering if maybe he'd overstepped his boundaries and needs to hide forever, but then his phone rings again. 

**Park_Mars** : I would love to!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My proofreading skills and character arc consistency checks increase by 1000 after I press post
> 
> Come poke me! [ @Porteaux_Perah ](https://twitter.com/Porteaux_Perah?s=09)


	5. My Blood Runs Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ,Seonghwa visits Yeosang at work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've read my other works, you'll know the */**/*** part is to indicate a flashback

Seonghwa is wearing a black t-shirt, ripped up jeans, and Doc Martens when he walks into the obelisk that _is_ 123 Front Street and does not need to be told that he is grossly underdressed for whatever kind of high class shennanigans goes on in there. 

He presses the '3' button and waits. 

The man in the three-piece suit who ended up on the elevator with him gets one good look at his gloves and leather jacket and presses himself into the wall to get as far away as possible, which isn't very far considering they're in a little metal box. Seonghwa watches the lights above the door- the man watching him like a hawk- and when the bell dings, he's pretty sure Suit Guy jams his finger in the 'door close' button the second he steps into the hallway. 

_Whatever._

He looks left. He looks right. 

The medical-white walls make him feel like he's stepped into some corner of the Twilight Zone, one where there are robotic orderlies and androids miming human emotion, and there's no indication of which way he's supposed to go because duties were hardwired into the workers. That's a whole sci-fi mini series right there. He'll have to keep that one for later. He looks at his phone, his heart tripping as he sees that he hasn't gotten a reply from Yeosang to his 'Surprise???' message he sent along with a picture of the awning. 

Neat. He's got a 50-50 chance at choosing the right direction. He picks left. 

The left wing looks like it belongs in a movie about a deadly pandemic criss-crossing through travel hubs, people in full white garb with respirators carefully moving test tubes from one sealed case to the next, and it looks like with that level of protection, they could go into outer space and be ok. One person inside notices him, and his head turns to watch Seonghwa from behind goggled eyes, most likely in an act of intimidation. Their line of sight is broken by a wall, thank goodness, but it looks like the neighbors next door are doctors with some kind of pediatrics unit because there's a wailing child who sounds like a young mutant banshee. It's a sharp contrast from the office at the end, the one with the heavy wooden door and the gold metal lettering sticking out of it reading 'BERGMAN & ROSS | ATTORNEYS AT LAW' that he turns away from still halfway down the hall. Passing by the elevator, he sees a lab for experimental biomedical research, a therapist's office, and a engineering design office. He peeks into the engineering area, sees one big open space with no Yeosang, and goes back to the biomedical lab. 

**Park_Mars** : Hey! Sorry if this is out of the blue

 **Park_Mars** : I think I'm at your lab. Could you let me in? 

He hits 'send', proud of himself, and sits at one of the minimalist wooden benches sticking into the opposite wall. 

It's not a bad location. It probably costs a fortune to rent there- the shop in town wasn't nearly as fancy or well-situated, and Seonghwa knows about the owners' financial issues from being within earshot of their calls every month. Landlords needed to eat too, but that didn't make the enormous rent increases worth it. Looking around, he can't image himself coming here every day, doing the same thing every day, seeing the same people. Granted, he does see the same people- there's the owner and the piercer and another artist, but they have a revolving door of customers that he gets to sit and make conversation with, and while he tattoos, he gets to learn about them. Even if it's just a little conversation here and there, it's an experience, and while he might not remember ever face or name, they're still a part of his experience at I Sing the Body Electric. 

Five whole minutes go by. Seonghwa's got himself in a comfy position sort of leaned against the cutout in the wall with his knees up and sleepiness encroaching on his sanity. It's been a long day already. His mind starts throwing out what-ifs, wondering what Yeosang's reaction will be, if he'll be mad that Seonghwa showed up even if it was because Wooyoung asked, and if he was the kind of person who could drop a friend at the drop of a hat, but Yeosang is still an angel- an angel who would be decent enough to drop Seonghwa gently in a face-to-face conversation. But he hasn't done anything (not yet, at least) , so there's a good chance he's just doing his typical 'I don't know how to be a human' thing and Yeosang is just really busy and has no idea he's there, and if not....  
Well, he's pretty sure he passed a nice lake he could throw himself into...

++

*

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*

_He jolts awake to the tap tap tap of Yeosang's middle finger against the meat of his forearm, right next to where his head had been resting. Seonghwa had gotten home from his apprenticeship later than usual- nealy 1am. The mess that crazy asshat made in the shop's bathroom had been a pain and a half to mop up._

_"Thanks." His voice is still low and grumbly with sleep, his eyes sporting deep, dark purple rings underneath that he's sure makeup couldn't even hide, if he wore any. Yeosang murmurs a quiet 'you're welcome'._

_The rest of the day goes by uneventfully. He's not trying to stay there any longer than he has to- just pay his dues, do his time, then go._

_Some new kid who has no idea how the social hierarchy here works is exchanging words with Yeosang. Or rather, some new meathead is shooting his shot at Yeosang, who's just trying to do his job as part of student government and tell the guy about the four billion after school clubs he's obligated to mention. New Guy is obviously disinterested, and from the bits and pieces he can hear as he walks closer, he has no sense of the narrow line he's walking._

_Yeosang is not inherently dangerous, but he's an angel amongst the demons like Seonghwa and that's gotten him a cushy seat as a favorite of the faculty. Mess with him, mess with the teachers, and while that might not sound like a big deal to Meathead, they can wrap him up in some nasty pre-requisites for graduation. They can call up his parents, and Seonghwa has a hunch that's a fate worse than death. They've all coexisted for the past 18 years in their mid-sized town, driven to the same malls, hung out at the same places, and learned that karma is Kang Yeosang's big sister. This new guy has a lot to catch up on._

_Meathead Supreme doesn't seem to get the message, and while it's none of his business, he's got a date in the student parking lot with his new motorcycle, and the fastest way there is out the door at end of the hall they're currently blocking. He takes his time and steps loudly, hoping it'll get their attention and they'll run in opposite directions like people usually did. Except they don't... And now Seonghwa is standing behind Yeosang like a dummy._

_"What are you doing out here?" He speaks slowly, as to keep his tone even and low._

_"Just having a conversation." Yeosang says at the same time the guy tries to explain why Yeosang should go on a date with him._

_"I'm sorry, you're what?" He blinks in confusion at how brazen Meathead is because no one just 'asks' for a date with Kang Yeosang. There was no 'just' anything with Kang Yeosang._

_"Help me out here, bud." An uncomfortably heavy arm is looped over his shoulder, the guy using him almost as an armrest, like he just assumed they're on the same team and Seonghwa would agree with his heckling and right, right, he's new, he doesn't know yet._

_But Seonghwa is going to make sure he changes that immediately._

_"You play with your food too much." Seonghwa sighs to Yeosang. He turns his head to narrow his glare at the new kid, "I prefer to eat mine."_

_The intention was to come off as intimidating. The intention was to scare the guy into thinking he belonged to the mafia and would find himself in a concrete block at the bottom of the ocean if Seonghwa so much as caught wind of him. And this happens. And he realizes only after saying that incredibly cheesy sentence that he might have implied that he and Yeosang are together and hinted his own sexuality, or the things he might do with it, which is why Mr. Perfect is now turning a brilliant shade of firetruck red._

_Meathead quickly apologizes and promises not to say anything, running with his tail between his legs down an adjacent hall._

_Yeosang mutters a 'thanks' and speedwalks away from danger in the opposite direction._

_Seonghwa asks the universe to swallow him whole._

*

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**

*

++

Seonghwa jolts himself awake, remembering the dream, then the actual event. That was one of three (3) conversations he'd ever had with Yeosang in high school, and he said... that.   
He said that. 

Thank god 24-year-old Seonghwa wasn't like that anymore, but he kind of wants to fight himself. It's a miracle that Yeosang is willing to talk to him. Maybe he doesn't remember? 

Nah, no way. People don't just forget nightmarishly embarrassing things like that.   
He waits for a few minutes, but it doesn't look like Yeosang's going to pick up his phone any time soon. Through the sliver of window, the group is engaged in a heated argument over something with math and the one equation they keep pointing at. Someone tries to stop them by getting a tenth person's opinion, but whatever they say seems to make it worse. Two people in the back are working on a 3D model blurred by the pane of frosted glass panel in front of it. Two other people, students probably, pick out the massive textbooks they need from around where Yeosang is now doing what he assumes is a step-by-step walkthrough of his logic. The tallest guy there seems to be considering it. Looks good. Everyone is dispersing. 

Now seems like a good time... 

Seonghwa taps on the glass and waves his hello at the researchers looking at him like startled animals. Yeosang's eyebrows shoot up in (what he hopes is) pleasant surprise. He says something to the others and movement resumes, but they're all watching out of the corners of their eyes. His little keycard blips against the matching card reader on the inside of the door. 

"Hey! What's up? I wasn't expecting you." 

"Wooyoung said that sometimes you don't eat, so I came here to make sure you did. Also I'm returning your clothes from that time we... _you know_. So um.... lunch?" 

His eyes are drawn to the little blue lunch tote, but they flick down to check his watch. "I need to finish some things up, but I'll be out there as soon as I'm done. There's a greenhouse on the roof we can go to, if that's good with you?" 

Seonghwa nods, backing up so that Yeosang can slip back behind the door and go to his station. He gets about three steps away before he spins and comes back through the door with his hand up, and his heart leaps. 

"Five minutes, promise!" 

++

He hasn't done this in a long time. 

The whole... human interaction thing, that is. 

Most of the time, he's at the parlor cleaning up or taking care of his station. The crew there are pretty laid back, but Seonghwa is particular about how things are laid out and how it looks and he knows for a fact that his walk-ins appreciate his tidiness just as much as his regulars and far-away visitors do. Parents feel more comfortable letting their kids get stabbed repeatedly by him when his tools are all in line with one another and shiny-clean. They even ask for him by name, that's how much they trust him. 

He likes being neat. 

But being neat takes time. 

It's time that he doesn't spend outside with the rest of humanity, and instead he stays cooped up in his little fishbowl world of the macabre. The shop's odd taxidermy figures and sideshow aesthetic are what he's familiar with. Not... this. 

The stew he made is hearty and warm and made with economic responsibilty, and luckily it hasn't spilled in the bag and made a soupy, beefy mess. It'll keep Yeosang going for the rest of the day and probably into tonight. The little researcher has on an eggshell-blue sweater too magical to touch and looks like a real-life angel. The blonde bits of his hair are streaked just so, dipping in and out from the chocolate brown waves. He's making sounds of appreciation over the food that Seonghwa hasn't gotten the courage to tell him he cooked himself, not wanting to throw the fact out of the blue when Yeosang is trying to explain what it is he does for a living.

"It's not that complicated." He says after explaining the most complicated thing Seonghwa and his I-failed-a-few-business-classes-in-college brain have ever heard. 

"You're the smart one. I just doodle." The words are harder to get out now that he's approaching the after-lunch slump. 

"You do more than doodle."

"I stab people."

Some passerby turns to side-eye them in horror, Yeosang whacking him in the shoulder. 

"Seonghwa!!!" His voice is low, as if that would make up for the technically correct statement he just shouted. 

"Sorry, sorry. I do art too." 

"Art on people, which is a respectable trade."

"Sometimes. I mean I tattooed a vagina once." 

Yeosang spits his water into the nearby fountain so he doesn't spit it on himself and Seonghwa, and now Seonghwa is laughing, and Yeosang is just confused because he's pretty sure he heard that right- he heard that right, didn't he?- and doesn't know how he's supposed to react because who does that? 

"What- why- why would you--?? Why would anyone get that?" The laughter is broken by coughing and desperate inhales to keep the oxygen flowing to his brain. Seonghwa's expression changes to a wide grin.

"Nonono I mean like I tattooed _on_ one." 

Yeosang chokes.

++

They talk about other things, like they places they've been and the places they're saving up to go. They've got a common destination of Amsterdam, though Yeosang wants to go there for his photography hobby while Seonghwa wants to visit at least two of the fifteen tattoo parlors he follows on Instagram and maybe get a piece done. The lunch half-hour becomes a lunch forty-five and then a lunch hour, lost in a discussion of backpacking on a budget and art of being broke. Seonghwa leaves the obelisk with Yeosang's phone number ("Just call me next time!") and plans to go to a $6 Tuesday movie night at the local cinema. He takes a joy ride and rides back as the sun is setting; a nice change from either midday or the dead of night. He kicks his bike stand down next to San's car and trudges inside with his empty lunch tote. 

"Hey!" San's hands are full of microwave dinner an old pasta jar he's decided to use as a cup for his orange juice, "Heard Woo sent you on an epic quest to feed Yeosang." 

The tone hints at knowledge of the crush Seonghwa won't even deny is forming. His wallet, keys, and phone clank onto the coffee table in the living room, the home screen illuminating to show the notifications about the weather and the client who's just emailed him back and the '1 New Message from Swamp Monster'. His finger taps on the last notification.

_Thanks for lunch!_

"Yeah, we had a good time! I'm gonna see him next week." 

"Good day?" San asks, though he's already noticed that the goofy smile on his brother's face only graces it when the subject is Yeosang. 

Seonghwa spins on one leg and flops into the couch. 

"Great day." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now we know about that time from Chapter 1 where Yeosang ran away. I'll edit this tomorrow. No beta, let's die like women  
> I want this to be the year where I Get Stuff Done but man is this update schedule brutal  
> We have three chapters of this story left, five chapters of NB:DLM left, and who knows where [COLORS](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392723) is going to end up


	6. Caught My Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seonghwa and Yeosang go to the aquarium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The statement "no beta, we die like women" has never applied more. I don't remember writing half of this

There was no version of this scenario where Yeosang slipped back into the lab unnoticed after a lunch break lasting 30 minutes longer than usual and in the company of a Very Handsome Someone. Four of his coworkers ask why he didn't stay out longer with the hot guy who brought him lunch and two of his coworkers praise all the higher powers that he wasn't kidnapped by the mafia. 

"Is that your boyfriend?" Yuqi asks when he finally gets back to his desk. 

"Nope." He doesn't have to look at her to know she isn't buying it. 

"Are you sure?"

"Definitely." He answers. Yesosang puts his folded-up clothes in his bag, pointedly ignores Gunmin asking if he has anymore hot friends, and gets back to work.

And he definitely doesn't think about how his clothes now smell like Seonghwa's house, nor does he imagine what it would be like to bury his face in Seonghwa's chest and breathe in that clean, homey scent. 

++ 

There's a lady who traveled all the way to Korea to get a tattoo from Seonghwa, and while Yeosang isn't well-versed in that realm, he imagines that that makes him a Pretty Big Deal, and that's why he's waiting in the cafe for his chai espresso and the matcha latte for his favorite $6 Tuesday movie buddy. They usually go to the cafe together every Saturday morning, but this piece is going going to take a 'heckin long time', which is why he thought it might be nice to drop a mid-afternoon dose of caffeine off at the shop. It was easy enough to get San's number from Wooyoung, and San had guaranteed that Seonghwa would not kill him, and that he'd probably appreciate it a lot (his exact response was five pages of emojis and a 'HELL YEAH!', but details). His inbox pings with two new messages- one for the location of the shop, and the other, a link to a video. Looking up, the barista is still running around, and there is no chai espresso nor matcha latte in sight, so he clicks on the link and waits for YouTube to load. 

Seonghwa's hair is visibly shorter and his arms; visibly less tattooed. The dense forest on his right arm looks more like the woods; the ocean scene on his left populated by only the loch ness monsters with no cthulu and company. He's on a show called 'Inked' where the prompt today is 'Crazy Client Stories'. His face draws up in the familiar half-in-pain-half-amused smile. 

"Crazy clients? I mean I've gotten my fair share of drunks and people who have wanted me to tattoo their unmentionables." Yeosang briefly recalls their first meeting at the fountain, when he most definitely embarrassed himself in front of an entire building of working professionals, almost dying over Seonghwa's 'gotta give the people what they want and if they want a butterfly on their hoo-ha then by darn, that's what they're gonna get' story. 

"You're in good with the mafia, right? That time with the-" the guy next to him (Raven? Ravn? His name came up earlier, but Yeosang was distracted by the stark blackout enveloping the white skeletons of small animals on his arms) puts his hands out as though water were trickling from the ceiling and he was trying to catch it. Seonghwa's bangs over his left eye flop up and down. 

"Oh my god, I completely forgot about that!" 

"How do you just _forget_ about that?!"

"Can I even tell that story? Like it's not bad or anything-" He grabs a hold of Ravn's (Raven's?) leg in excitement. One of the staff members off-screen ok's the tale. Seonghwa rolls up his sleeves to where the silhouette of witches in a full moon will one day reside, and begins his story.

++

Apparently there's a little bungalow in a nondescript neighborhood somewhere frighteningly close to where Yeosang's parents live, the inhabitants of which are between eight and forty criminals with a couple thousand tattoos between them. And based on the last story, at least four of them are running around with Seonghwa's work on them, though he can't name any names because he'll probably get killed. 

Somehow, that scares him less than walking inside the parlor.

Yeosang shouldn't feel this nervous. The little chalkboard sign reading 'Walk-Ins Welcome!' with a hand pointing towards the red and gold door shouldn't be this intimidating, but he still can't bring himself to go inside yet.

It's unreasonable, this feeling. This is Seonghwa's place- his second home, from the way he's described it. They've gone out to coffee numerous times, and Seonghwa has made it a habit to stop by Yeosang's work and feed him whatever he made for dinner last night, and no, Wooyoung, those do _not_ count as dates. Seonghwa is a familiar face, a good person to be around, and standing outside of the tattoo parlor, his heart thrums in a thunderous chorus telling him to run in such a tangled mess of signals that the gears seize up. 

Well...  
The drinks in his hands aren't getting any warmer. 

Yeosang pushes the door open, freezing for a moment as the little _jingaling_ sounds from above. He would have preferred that a bell had not rung upon entry, but it's too late and there are three heads on swivels now staring at him. 

"Hi! Welcome! Can I help you with anything?"

"I'm looking for Park Seonghwa." he says, but the way he says it is more like a question, and he's glad she isn't asking about it.

"Take a seat- we'll be with you in the moment."

The woman doesn't indicate where he's supposed to take a seat, but he supposes perusing will be ok too. Looking around, the cabinets seem to be covered in oddities, posters and prints lining the walls. The numerous giant potted plants and black-and-white tiles give the the place a sort of cozy feel, like the inside of the Addams family mansion. In a little alcove behind the statue of a golden cat, Seonghwa is laser-focused, though when the woman taps him on the shoulder, it's like he becomes a different person. He turns to look, then waves with his tattoo gun. 

"Oh! Yeosang! Give me a minute and I'll say hi." 

It takes him a while to finish up, but the second he does, he comes over. Yeosang is frozen as a well-dressed man, one much different from the one who tells him to take care of himself and to take breaks if he needs to and to have a good rest, approaches him with a lopsided smile and hair covering one side of his face. 

"I wasn't expecting you!" 

Seonghwa goes in for a hug, Yeosang opening his arms but woah, _woah, no-_

"You're wearing cologne." He states, skirting backwards. 

The artist tilts his head like a confused puppy. "I... um... yeah?"

Yeosang can physically feel his willpower slipping away.   
He's made a terrible miscalculation. Guys who smell nice are his weakness, and fuck, whatever he's wearing smells so cozy. Seonghwa smells like cotton candy and a heroin addiciton, and Yeosang is 110% wiling to become a junkie. This is probably the best worst thing that could have happened. 

"It's nice. What is it?"

"John Varvatos, the black one. Can't remember it's exact name but I have a regular client who sent me a bottle for Christmas." 

Oh god abort abort he knows what he's talking about, that's such an attractive quality, a man who knows how to put himself together. Yeosang is going to be smelling this in his dreams, no he did not stutter. 

"What a guy."

"Yeah, he's cool. Listen, I'm still working on this piece- just cleaning up and bandaging left- but once I finish up, why don't we get outta here, huh?" 

Yeosang's eyes flick over to the woman in the chair, left arm still on the stand; right on her phone, smiling a sheepish apology when they make eye contact for the briefest of seconds. He nods. 

"Great! Just wait here and I'll meet you." 

Yeosang does his very best not to hear anything after the woman on session #3 of her full color sleeve tells Seonghwa he has a cute little boyfriend, after which Seonghwa says something quietly enough to be blurred by the shoddy radio reception playing overhead. The woman from the front desk, Mara, makes small talk with him while she cleans off her station, asking about where he went to school and what a nice and respectable-looking citizen like him would be doing there. Yeosang learns within three minutes that she is very loud, very talkative, and very fond of tequila sunrises.   
In the hour he spends leaned onto the glass countertop, Yeosang also learns why it's so difficult to purchase carnival antiques, how to rig a sailboat, and too much about the man named Bob who Mara discovered in her bathroom one day. Mara takes a customer back with her, and the sense of time and how much he's lost hits him like a slap in the face with a clock. Seonghwa ends up apologizing profusely, saying that he needs a lot more time than he thought he would to finish the tattoo, could he maybe possibly see Yeosang tomorrow so they could properly have a caffeine break and maybe something else, but no pressure, ok?   
Yeosang doesn't have to think twice before he accepts. 

++

They take a walk in the park. 

Not the one where Yeosang fell into the lake- the other one, where the sculpture garden is, right next to the aquarium Seonghwa has gotten tickets for. Yeosang hasn't been to one of these places in ages- the last time he remembers going was for his internship in college, and the time before that was for a class field trip in high school. That was back when he was on the student council and was wrongfully considered part pf the 'designated adult' group. He's pretty sure that that was the year they "lost" two kids (his secret theory has always been that they went off to make out, but who knows), and he has the blurry memory of running around trying to find them, but that could just be a fever dream. 

That being said, this visit is considerably nicer. 

The cool, dark halls take away the stress from his daily life. He may be confined to white walls 60 hours a week, but here, the slow weave of sharks from around rocky edges and the schools of colorful fish moving around each other are all he can see.   
And there's Seonghwa. Can't forget that. 

It's rare for him to be around someone his age who's as nice as Seonghwa. It's a welcome change, even if there are families all over the place with crying kids. Speaking of which- the girl near their knees. She could be 5, but Yeosang has never been good at this guessing game. The girl doesn't know what to make of them, eyes darting between the creatures on Seonghwa's arms, then to the bright yellow sweater Yeosang has on, down to the silver chain looping from Seonghwa's belt, and up to the pointed frames of Yeosang's cat's-eye glasses. 

"Are you a fairy?" She settles on asking, which is truly an approparite question for someone her age. 

Seonghwa looks at Yeosang, asking 'are we telling the truth or not today?' with his eyes. 

"Haha, not quite, little one." But he's seen so many movies, read so many books. There are a million creatures in his mind and one which he favors above the rest. "I'm what's called a Vanna, a Dreamweaver. I'm what makes sure you see nice things when you sleep." 

The girl looks at him, entrigued because no one has ever read stories with those kinds of creatures aloud to her before. She looks at Seonghwa and asks, "Are _you_ a fairy?"

"No, I'm not." 

"What are these?" her little finger points to the jackalope on the inside of his wrist. 

"My tattoos."

"How'd you get 'em?"\

"I--" He stutters, throwing the 'I need help' look but receiving none, "I'm... I'm what's called a Nightfighter. I fight the monsters under the bed and in the closet, and then-"

"But there's no such thing as monsters under the bed." The girl is smart, Yeosang thinks. She'd do well in research with all her questions. 

"That's because we do such a good job." Seonghwa does his exaggerated wink.

In the mind of a little girl, the response seems to make perfect sense. 

But to the girl's father?   
Not so much. 

For some reason, people got the idea that tattoos indicated a person's quality, and the number of pieces adorning a passerby's skin directly correlated to how malicious they were. So by this reason, Seonghwa must have clocked in at a SCP keter-level threat, and that's why the father starts freaking out in the middle of the jellyfish hall.   
To be fair, he's just a man who came here to have a good time and turned around to see his little girl talking to two strangers. Yeosang doesn't blame him.   
Though it would have been helpful if he had just listened for a couple seconds.   
Their exchange goes from clarifying that no, they aren't kidnappers to 'damn kids these days' to the morality of tattoos in a couple of seconds, though it leaves his brain feeling like tomato soup. 

Seonghwa tells the guy it's art, not gang related. 

The father says it's digusting to have those on his body. 

Seonghwa tell him it's a good thing it's on his body, and not the father's.   
Meanwhile, Yeosang just wants to go home because he didn't sign up for this, and now this little, impressionable girl is going to think that she did something wrong by talking to these people she thought were fairies, and she's going to have an opinion on tattoos without even understanding what they are other than pretty pictures on a strange man's skin, and God, Yeosang is just so tired. 

"-don't need that in the world, so you take your ignorance, you take your prejudice, and you sit at home AWAY from everyone and stew it in alone because we certainly don't need that out here." 

The father holds onto his daughter, Seonghwa holding onto Yeosang and turning so that his body is always shielding his, stepping back and around the bend, pulling his eyes off the two once he feels they're a suitable distance away. People watch them go, and it's all too much. Yeosang takes Seonghwa's hand and runs them through the rest of the exhibit out into the main lobby. He's panting, but not because he's tired. 

"That was..." Seonghwa searches for a word, "unfortunate." 

"Yeah, could have gone without that. Remind me never to get you mad." 

It's meant to be a joke, but Seonghwa's expression changes instantly from 'fuming dragon' to 'deer in headlights' and he oh-oh no's his way into an explanation. "I would never do that to you! It's only assholes who I don't know who seem to think they're entitled to do and say whatever they want. If you were mad at me, I'd- I don't even know, I'd probably cry." 

"You? Cry?" 

"I mean-- you're you! You're so sweet that I'd feel guilty because whatever I did, I probably deserved getting yelled at, but I can't even see you yelling. You'd probably do that thing where people shut down and you'd get all quiet and subdued and oh fuck, oh, I don't like this-" his words are jumbling together like a trainwreck, Seonghwa picking up pace as he becomes more and more distressed, "Let's not do this train of thought, it's kind of scary. What do you normally do in the mornings? How do you like your eggs?"

"I... um... sunnyside... but I usually go back to sleep after I wake up." 

Seonghwa mutters to himself, something sounding like 'of course you do, I should have known'. His follow-up distraction questions seem to do the trick, and by the time they're out on the front steps and back in the park, he's un-worried himself enough to stop pacing. "Sorry about today. I did enjoy our time, minus almost fighting that guy, even though it was short." 

"Not your fault. Gives us time to do something else." 

Yeosang _was_ the one who dragged them out, and it's not like either of them asked to be misjudged. Seonghwa may look scary, he may be covered in pictures of tiny monsters, but on the inside, he was his own worst enemy. He cared, and while he didn't make a habit of spitting venom like he had in high school, that didn't mean he'd forgotten how to. He feels bad for rushing, bad for a lot of things, but then looks down to stop the surprised 'hang on a second' expression

Shoud he do it? Should he not?   
Yeosang bites his lip, checks the time.   
It's still early. He's gonna do it.

"Hey," His voice brings Seonghwa out of whatever kind of trance he was in, "do you.. wanna go back to my place?" 

++

Seonghwa likes tea, not coffee, exclusively, and he dips his tongue into it periodically like a cat to check if it's hot. He does this while listening to Yeosang, not even breaking concentration, as though that were the most normal and not distracting thing in the universe. They make it through two mugs each before Seonghwa starts looking around and Yeosang jumps the gun to ask what he's looking for. 

"Could I use your bathroom?"

"Yeah, sure. It's at the end of the hall, right past my bedroom."

Seonghwa thanks him, Yeosang picking up his empty mug and washing it quickly.  
It's oddly domestic.   
He could imagine what it would be like to wake up on a weekend and have Seonghwa there at the kitchen table with is green tea, Yeosang with his coffee, chatting about their work. Maybe they would have movie nights in instead of at the theater. How nice would that be? He'd be wrapped up with blanket and a carton of ice cream and aish, he needs stop himself before he gets too out of hand. What is he even thinking! Yeosang puts a cup in the dish rack. He hears the flush of a toilet and the sink going off.   
_Pull yourself together._

Seonghwa comes back in with his head twisting like he's looking for something. Yeosang tilts to get into his field of vision. "You want anything to eat? I think we have some spare sweets and stuff." 

"Yeah, no, it's ok. Listen, thanks for everything but I, uh... I gotta go." Why is his voice so soft? Did he say the wrong thing? And going, like 'going home' going? But why? 

The rug isn't pulled out from under him.   
The entire floor drops into the void, and Yeosang can feel himself spinning. 

"What?" he hears himself say, though it's almost like the words are coming out from somewhere that isn't his mouth. 

"I'm gonna go home, stuff to do. I'll... I''ll talk to you tomorrow, ok?"

"Sure, Um... goodnight. Get home safe...?"

Seonghwa gives him a hug before he goes, though it feels like a lie. He doesn't even look Yesoang in the eyes and even though no one says it, it feels like the reason is because he physically can't. The door doesn't slam, but rather closes so quietly that Yeosang stares and it and wonders if that really just happened until he's surrounded by overwhelming silence and realizes that yeah, it just did. It's confusing and uncomfortable and Yeosang just wants to know what the sudden shift in mood was about, but he's off-kilter in his own body, he needs to go lie down-

Yeosang stops at the end of the hallway, facing into his room. 

He sees it hanging out from a box under his bed. 

The only bright, eye-catching object sticking out like shiny gem.

Yeosang knows exactly why Seonghwa left. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're gonna get a little angsty in C7 with an easily-reconcilable problem .  
> Will I proofread? Who knows  
> Sorry for the errors


	7. Shaking in My Shoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yeosang and Seonghwa haven't been talking for the past few days, and now we find out why

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all  
> Thanks for waiting for me!

"You know, I'm all for getting more dairy in your diet, but this is just sad."

Seonghwa looks up from his ice cream- now more like Ben and Jerry's soup than anything- for the first time since he'd plopped himself down on the couch. Netflix is stuck on that slightly condescending 'Are You Still Watching?' screen in the middle of a freeze-frame from Secrets of the Dead.

Is San concerned? 

San is. 

It's been this way since Monday, give or take, though this is the first time he's gotten home early enough to catch him in the act of wallowing. Usually there's just an empty pint container in the trashcan and heavy sighing that he's pretty sure the neighbors can hear. 

"What's up with you? I don't want to... _intrude_ or anything, but this is the worst I've seen you." 

Seonghwa doesn't look at him, and San knows that it's because he's trying to gauge whether or not a long enough silence will make his brother lose interest, but it won't- not this time- and they both know it. 

"It's Yeosang, he's... ugh, I just feel so stupid for getting my hopes up." His hands run over his eyes, then across his cheeks. "I thought we were getting somewhere but I think he's just this friendly with everybody."

San recoils hard, but recovers with a narrow glare. "This better not be one of those 'I don't think I'm good enough for him' speeches because we've talked about this and I wasn't kidding about literally fistfighting you." 

"No, no it's not that. It's just.... it's a long story." Seonghwa seems to curl in on himself as though that itself were the admission of some terrible secret; as though he could turn himself invisible if he could become small enough. The couch dips as San climbs on next to him.

"If you're willing to tell it, I've got time." 

The look he gets asks if San is sure, if he's willing, but this is progress, and San will be damned if he lets this opportunity slip away. He leans back into the crook where the armrest meets the back cushion and gets comfy. He has a feeling they'll be there for a while. 

"Go for it." 

"... so we went out on Sunday to the Aquarium..." 

*

**

***

**

*

Seonghwa doesn't have a lot of people around him, and he doesn't actively try to add more. It took time and, most of all, trust to find the secret passages to that special place in his heart. The few who he kept there he protected like a dragon with its hoard. He would do anything short of Thelma-and-Louise-ing himself off a cliff, if necessary, and he would always do it gladly. 

But for those who broke that trust, Seonghwa could raise his defenses just as efficiently and effectively as he'd trained himself to. The same walls which let him maintain his composure while strangers criticized him or when people on the subway tried to kick him off worked well- too well- to keep him from getting reattached. Seonghwa has never been good at amputating his own dead limbs, so instead he tied tourniquets made of painfully polite conversation and clearly ungenuine smiles until the person saw themselves out. 

So yeah, Seonghwa is nervous about opening up. 

The tickets are in hand, he's checked over the schedule to make sure they can see feeding time; everything (hopefully everything, knock on wood) has been accounted for. He has the collective blessing of San, the entire staff of I Sing the Body Electric, and Joanna, who came all the way from England so Seonghwa could do her sleeve (and told him that he had a cute boyfriend) (and gave him relationship advice when she heard they weren't actually together) so it should be fine. They're going to go on a date, and it's going to be fine. 

_Oh god, they're going on a date._

Seonghwa's been on dates. He doesn't exactly fly under the radar with literally every inch of his arms covered in purposely eye-catching artwork and the fact that he has angular, catlike eyes and high cheek bones, which people seem to gravitate towards.

And because of that, people ask him out on dates.

 _Lots_ of dates. 

Some of them are good, some of them are good for a laugh, but the point is that first dates are the ones that clue people into whether or not the person across the table at dinner (usually before a movie) (which is the least creative date idea, in his humble opinion) is appropriate long-term relationship material or not. Even if they go on another date, Yeosang will base his future expectations and assumptions on this.

It isn't so much a second chance as it is redemption. 

Second chances were what happened when the slate got cleaned, like a re-roll of the dice, but his current self wod always carry his past. Memory was like one long timeline, and one could easily look back and see the pock marks where they were burned. Those determine if the one who burned them got a saving throw. While Seonghwa never personally burned Yeosang, it was well-known that he was made of fire, and that he needed to be avoided, but people change, and he's come a long way from the cornered animal in high school who used to snarl out words with the most vile coherency just to keep himself at arm's length. Once he realized that trusting only himself would make for a bitter, lonely existence, he found a heart which thrived with those he shared a deep and meaningful relationship with.   
And he wants that with Yeosang. 

So yeah, Seonghwa is nervous, but there's no time for that. Yeosang has just arrived and is having trouble parallel parking on the white curb next to the park, and he needs help beacuse this is kind of embarrassing, I promise I'm a good driver, this isn't funny Seonghwa stop laughing! His head and one arm are out the window waving him over so the artist can be his rear view camera. 

"Not a word." Yeosang says with a pointed finger, his car at a solid 7 degree angle from the curb. Seonghwa puts his hands up in mock surrender before offering his arm, taking the street side as they walk to through the park gates.

He'll just have to cross his fingers and let tides take him. 

++

Just because Seonghwa doesn't spit venom anymore doesn't mean he's forgotten how to. This isn't the first person to judge him for his tattoos. He certainly won't be the last. 

Though he can't help but feel his heart plummet into his stomach as soon as the adrenaline wears off. All that first date stuff? It's coming back to haunt him. Hopefully, the fascination and wonder Yeosang felt while watching the divers feed the stingrays will overshadow the incident. 

"That was..." _rude, inconsiderate, biased_ , "unfortunate." 

"Remind me to never get you mad." He jokes with a big smile, thinking nothing of it, but it hits different. He has an image in his mind like a reflection in water which ripples and distorts, twisting around what he thinks and feels. Seonghwa might be able to fight others, but he's also his own worst enemy. 

"Let's not do this train of thought, it's kind of scary." he blurts, trying to distract himself, "What do you normally do in the morning? How do you like your eggs?" 

"Um... Sunnyside, but I usually go back to sleep after I wake up." 

Ugh, of course he likes sunnyside. That's so him.Yeosang is a bit like the sun himself, but more like a blue sky with fluffy clouds and pleasant shade. Not too hot and not too cold. And Seonghwa is another creature warmed by his rays. 

++

Yeosang invites him back to his apartment, which makes him more than a little nervous. Yeosang never seemed like the kind of person to sleep with someone on the first date, but people could be surprising. He imagines it won't come to that, but if Yeosang asks, hopefully he won't mind that Seonghwa needs time to become emotionally attached before he can be intimate with anyone. 

Yeosang has a tea and coffee collection that could rival his grandma's cabinet, and they chat between mugs and burned tongues. Seonghwa really doesn't want to break away, but his bladder is starting to yell at him and the waistband of his skinny jeans pushing down makes him regret his choice of outfit. 

In the path of the red door is the table they're sitting at, which sits with teh kitchen atop a platform two stairs above where their couches and TV are. Seonghwa tilts so his hip misses the edge of the couch as he makes his way down the hall, stepping over the random tidbits that lived there. The door to the bathroom is ajar, and adjacent is another room with the door slightly open as well. This must be Yeosang's room. 

Seonghwa feels a bit like a thief in the night, looking in. He can see a dark Navy bedspread and fluffy white pillows, a coat hanging off the edge, boxes of storage under- 

Is that...?

Seonghwa slips into the bathroom, shutting the door closed behind him with soft click and a short exhale. He stands in front of the sink with his hand on the doorknob, unable to move. Was that really...? What?

Whose clothes are those? Is Yeosang seeing someone? He wouldn't have expected it based on their conversations, but he could've been keeping it private. It's common for people to keep a box of their things at their boyfriend's or girlfriend's houses- he shouldn't be surprised that someone as handsome and witty as Yeosang has a girlfriend and thus has a box of her things, and that whoever this lady is wears pretty ivory panties and leaves them hanging out of said box. She probably didn't anticipate someone like Seonghwa coming over, or maybe she didn't care. 

It's getting hard to breathe, and the short, shallow breaths make his head spin.

This is an unexpected factor. 

He should've known it was too good to be true. Wrong place, wrong time... It always seems to be that way. In addition to the maze in his heart, Seonghwa habitually calculates the probability of danger and navigates around it. Sometimes he'll blatantly ignore the signs in favor of helping someone or for going out with friends even if doesn't want to, but this?

This is a major oversight. 

He does his business on autopilot; washes his hands for some amount of time before realizing that he should probably get back out there. Yeosang is at the sink, putting the mugs in the drying rack, and god, it hurts, it hurts so much to see him. It looks so natural. He glances back in the room hoping that his mind was just playing tricks on him, but it wasn't, and it's still peaking out from the box.

"Hey! You want anything to eat? I think we have some spare sweets and stuff." The light above the sink makes him look like an angel, and the sight makes him almost break down on the spot. 

"No, thanks. Listen... I've gotta go home." He mumbles, the energy gone from his voice. He says goodbye, tries not to focus too hard on Yeosang's comfusion leaking with hurt, and hopes that whoever she is, she loves Yeosang just as much as Seonghwa could have. 

*

**

***

**

*

Yeosang skirts around the topic of that weekend for about three days, and both he and Wooyoung know he's letting time slip away, but there's nothing else he can do. Seonghwa hasn't shown up, and Yeosang can't help but feel like his little secret has irrevocably ruined what they might have had. Wooyoung comes back with food- actual food, because when Yeosang gets like this he doesn't feel like eating, and he doesn't want a repeat of junior year finals week- and waits for the delicious scent of fried chicken to waft through their apartment. 

Chicken and Yeosang are like two opposing ends of a magnet: if there's chicken, there will be Yeosang. 

Though he doesn't expect him to come out wrapped in his comforter. 

Wooyoung pulls out a seat at the kitchen table and pats it the way his mother used to when it was time to put on new band-aids after a day outside. He waits until Yeosang has worked through two drumsticks before popping the question. 

"What happened between you and Gwa? Our ship was sailing, we were well fed." 

He hasn't spoken to San much this week. They say hi when they bump into one another in the hall, but they don't talk anymore. If he ever bothered taking down the little sticky note covering the hole in the barrier between their desks, he imagines he'd find the back of a sticky note from San's side as well. 

Yeosang looks at him, mouth frozen mid-chew, an expression of emotional exhaustion on his face. "It's a long story."

"Aren't they all?"

"I suppose you're right" 

Wooyoung grabs for the bottle of soda and pours himself a glass. 

"Why don't you start from the beginning." 

*

**

***

**

*

It was supposed to end there. 

Yeosang finishes the shoot to the sound of applause. The stylist noonas who were grabbing at him earlier grab him again, this time in a hug that could kill a large bear, completely disregarding the fact that he's still wearing a robe and panties and literally nothing else. They thank him for coming in on such short notice, and someone hands him a business card in the hopes of convincing him to do another shoot. Wooyoung hops into the driver's seat and starts giving an impromptu history of the staff before passing a movie theater on their way back to the highway and remembering that he wanted to go see the most recent Pixar movie.

He forgets about the shoot. They both do. 

It gets jumbled into the mix of things. Work is work, and work is hectic, so there's no room to reflect when everywhere he looks there's a small fire. Yeosang has more important things to think about while he's 0.5 seconds away from pulling his hair out at work, but during the moments of quiet on the drive to the lab and during his lunch break, he thinks about how odd the entire situation was. It comes creeping back into his mind, giving him the phantom feelings from when he was on set. But he shakes off the thoughts like sand from his hair and gets back up. How odd he'd think, and then he'd think nothing of it. 

++

The first time he realizes it's not nothing is when he's out wtih Wooyoung on their Saturday date mate dinners, eaten at any one of three locations where the owners know them so well that their orders are already in the queue before they're even seated and their apps come with extra goodies as a thank you. It happens as they're walking down the strip and pass a clothing store he's never seen before, or maybe he's just never noticed it before. His eyes snag on an elegant lace piece in the window. It's a blue-grey robe covering up a pair of black lace panties on a felt mannequin, and suddenly he feels the itch to have it. He lets his gaze linger before tearing it away, more confused about himself than he was a few minutes ago, but it's still nothing, and he can ignore it for now. 

++

The anxiety is almost impossible to ignore. He nearly gives himself a stroke worrying about the first package he orders online. He has no idea if the packaging will come in a blank box or a box proudly announcing 'LINGERIE INSIDE!' or if it'll say a brand, and if so, will Wooyoung suspect anything? He ordered a few extra items just in case that last scenario happens and Wooyoung- ever the nosy friend- demands he hold an impromptu fashion show. He practically races out of the lab and speeds back to their house, scooping up the brown box from their doorstep before anyone can intercept him. 

When he opens it, the biggest smile spreads on his face. 

++

The collection grows slowly, and he doesn't think it's a big deal until he has to dig through his closet and find a dedicated box to hold all of his new goodies. He's been slowly collecting ever since that first order, and with the speed of the industry, there's always something to check out. More often than not, Yeosang will come home and try on a new combination, or he'll throw on one of his old favorites, until he's un-stressed and just tired. Generally, he wears a pair to bed, then resumes his daily life the next day. 

He doesn't dare wear any of them out in public. 

Not at first, at least. 

But one day everything is going to shit and he doesn't want to get out of bed but he has to because he needs to work to make money to feed himself. He pulls himself up and trudges to the bathroom, then back to his closets. He still walking like a zombie- an annoyed zombie now that he remembers he needs to do laundry- and is now faced with the choice of going commando or wearing a special pair. It's risky, but he'll be in an even worse mood if he destroys the skin so he might as well bite the bullet and put on a pair- a navy blue cheekie with polka dots and a cute white bow- and his mood instantly brightens. It's like he's wrapped in a soft cotton hug around his hips and just that is enough to get him through the day.

++

It takes hours to try everything on and model it for himself. It's not at all sexual because Yeosang is an LGBTQ+ unicorn, but he does fit into the outfits just as easily as the models do. He takes the time to study the contrast of his olive skin and the rich earthy tones he's picked. He takes the time to treat himself. The most intimate parts of himself are being wrapped up in a soft, silky security blanket and it makes him feel nice and cozy. He quietly locks the door to his room and pulls out his box. 

_Decisions, decisions..._

He could try on the maroon pair with the black stockings, or he could wear the robe and underwear. The possibilities are endless and all so tempting. Wooyoung will be back soon, he'll have to hurry up if he wants to have time to himself and get redressed. 

But.... just a little longer couldn't hurt. 

*

**

***

**

*

Yeosang is of the mindset that clothing is for everyone, but not everyone would agree with that statement. Looking into his room, he knw for a fact that if Seonghwa took even a half-second glance into his room, he would've seen his favorite pair of ivory lace that he left out accidentally in his rush to run his errands that morning.

And based on the reaction, he definitely did.

Based on that reaction, he must not want anything to do with him, because Seonghwa signed up for being around a boy, not a boy who liked women's underwear because it looks good on him and makes feel good on the inside and how is he ever going to explain this when he can't even explain that he'll never want to have sex with him? It's taken a long time for Yeosang to be comfortable with himself and this new development, and he wishes that Seonghwa was too. 

"I don't know what to do." He admits.

Wooyoung puts down his glass and rests a hand on Yeosang's shoulder. "I think you do. You need to talk to him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will edit Yeosang's portion when my eyes aren't twitching.  
> Next/last chapter is their talk and the epilogue. Almost there!


	8. Neverland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seonghwa and Yeosang finally talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all! Thanks for sticking with me during the wait. I rewrote the confession part like 20 times. (Maybe I'll do it a 21st. *shrugs*)

There are twenty-five minutes between now and when his next client comes in, which means there’s enough time for Seonghwa to powerwalk to the café down the block, funnel some caffeine into his accursed walking corpse of a body, and be back in time to work on the chestpiece. He makes his way via muscle memory, eyes trained on the cracks in the blocks so he doesn’t have to see his reflection in the door of Nine Lives Consignments, and steps behind the three other people in line.

Seonghwa lets out a sigh. He’d been hunched over someone’s leg for the better part of four hours, and the day before he’d dealt with some particularly troublesome hooligans from the local high school. His arms feel like jelly and he’s pretty sure he has a knot the size of Jeju Island in his shoulder, but no one cares about the plight of the artist when they’re distracted by their work. Plus, they’re gearing up for another convention so he has to redo his portfolio, which is one of exactly four things that keeps him up until all hours of the night.

God, is he tired….

That’s probably why it takes him so long to recognize the blurry profile waiting at the end of the counter as Yeosang, one hand held up to press a headphone into his ear, the other tilting his phone so he can talk directly into the receiver. His half-speed reaction does not by any means express his internal panic, nor does it allow him to stop staring like an idiot before Yeosang looks up while in the middle of a sentence and spots him. He gives a curt, awkward wave with the hand holding the phone.

In an instant, all of his worries fade into background noise. His heart sinks _down, down, down_ to the coat of armor that will protect it from itself. He would have preferred not to raise his walls today, but if he has to, he'll do it. Yeosang isn't his. He has to remember that.

“Good afternoon, sir. What can I get you?”

Seonghwa puts on a corporate smile, then places his order.

++

++

  
This was supposed to be a discussion about ‘Mission Improbable’ aka ‘Plans to Woo San’ aka ‘Hold on that’s actually a good name, Operation WooSan’ but clearly things have taken a turn for the worst, the worst meaning Yeosang’s perpetual inability to open his mouth and explain himself like a responsible adult.

_Still??? I thought you were going to text him on Thursday! Yeosang I swear to God if you don’t talk to him, I give up_

“That’s not much of a threat.”

_I’m serious! Why can't you guys just kiss and make up? Do you know how awkward it is not talking to San??? We’re literally on opposite sides of a desk!!!_

“Sometimes you’re the dumptruck and sometimes you’re trash. And I, my good sir, consider-“ Yeosang freezes in place like a deer hearing a rustle in the woods. No way… is that…? “Oh my god, what is he doing here?!”

He’s not sure why he whisper-screams that out loud- all Wooyoung does it laugh and do a victory war cry.

_The fates are on your side! This is your opportunity!_

“To what, make things worse?” he hisses.

_Listen, I’m sure if you talk to him, it’ll be ok. You don’t have to reveal your whole life story, but just talk to him! You guys got along really well._

“I’m not so sure about that-

_I’m gonna get off now so you can talk to him_

“Wait! Stay on!”

_OK I LOVE YOU BYEEEEEE!!!!_

“No! Wooyoung don’t you dare—“ Shaking his phone reveals an ended call, much to Yeosang’s distain. This is one of the few times he would rather see the ugly photo he has saved as Wooyoung’s contact than the waiting numbers of his keypad. He sighs heavily.

Yeosang two options.

He could pretend to be on the phone, or he could actually put out a call to someone in the hopes they pick up. He hasn’t called his parents in a few days, and while they would confused they'd still be thrilled nonetheless. Seonghwa would stay pressed up next to the napkin station to give him a polite amount of space. Yeosang would leave with his drink and be out the door long before Seonghwa got his matcha latte.

Yeosang would send some sort of apology.

Seonghwa would say something equally as empty.

Business as usual.

On the other hand…

What if they had a good conversation? Things obviously won’t be the same since Seonghwa’s seen a part of him that was never meant to be seen, but maybe they could be on actual talking terms again. Something a little more than asking how work is going- would that be so much? At the very worst, Yeosang takes his drink and makes like greased lightning and they never talk again, but at the very best….

Screw it, option two is a go. Yeosang pockets his phone and forces himself to reach around some poor, unsuspecting man to knock on the countertop twice, getting Seonghwa’s attention before he can internally argue with himself long enough to miss his window of opportunity. Seonghwa looks up from where Yeosang knows he was idly scrolling through Instagram and clicks his phone off. His arms wrap in front of him like a protective belt.

“Hey! I saw you over there on your call. Did want to bother you.” His smile is strained, boxy, and doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It’s a face he’s put on especially for Yeosang.

He hates it.

“Yeah, I was just catching up with Wooyoung.” Seonghwa nods and makes an ‘ahh’ sound, one that could easily end the conversation there if Yeosang were content to leave things as unresolved as they were. He shuffles in place, then carries on. “So… are you off now?”

“Not quite. I have another appointment in a bit. Just wanted to get a drink before I go back in.”

“Oh wow. What kind of piece is it?”

The smalltalk is painful. Like pulling teeth-painful. Yeosang’s insides squirm like a thousand eels caught in the shallows, and he hopes to all the higher powers that this is worth it. He nods along with the overly courteous answer he’s been given for yet another one of his questions. This isn’t the Seonghwa he knows, but at least they’re talking, so that’s something.

“Cappucino for Yeosang!” the barista's voice carries over the swarm of people.

His head ticks to the side, body trying to decide whether to let Seonghwa finish his sentence or to pick up his drink. Seonghwa pauses, then looks in the direction of the counter, silently asking if Yeosang is going to get that, which he does with a few 'excuse me's and 'thank you's thrown in when appropriate. He slips back into his spot, now in the same sort of awkward tension from earlier, staring down at his coffee in-hand. _What to say, what to say..._

"I've gotta go back. It was good talking to you!"

Yeosang doesn't have anything more to his excuse than that; something Seonghwa will see through immediately if he asks. But instead he gets the generic 'no problem, nice to see you too'. They don't hug before Yeosang squeezes his way out of the pod of customers. Maybe if he can get home fast enough, he can do the Cathartic Scream and sort through all of his emotions out before the talk. Yeah... That sounds like a good plan...

"Hey!" Seonghwa's hand is up, startling at least three people. "Can we talk more later? I feel like there's a lot to catch up on."

A wicked knot twists in his stomach, but he's right. They need to see where they stand going forward.

“I’d like that a lot.”

++

++

There are a grand total of twelve people in the parking lot outside of Yeosang’s house, the heads of whom Yeosang has counted thrice. He glances at his phone again.

_6:40_

Seonghwa won’t be here for another five minutes, so he has some time to cool out and go over his escape plan in case things go awry. Wooyoung is camped out at the ice cream place in town, but he promised that he would be three knife emojis away, should anything happen.

…though he also said that San messaged him for the first time in a while so he might be too preoccupied with that to come to his aid. Something about solidarity, ships sailing, so on and so on.

He checks his phone again.

_6:41_

Right, this totally isn’t creepy, meeting out in a parking lot this close to nightfall. And it definitely isn't a setup for a verbal fistfight, drawing the attention of everyone in the neighborhood. The memory of high school comes around to whisper in his ear again, recalling how his friends in the honor societies said that 'his kind' and those dangerous viper-types like Seonghwa were better off in their own realms. But Seonghwa has been nothing but a gentleman ever since their reintroduction. He's one of the only people he feels truly comfortable revealing his inner thoughts to because he knows he's never hurt him.... But there's a chance he might rip apart his feelings.

His phone buzzes in his hand.

From: **Mothman**

I’m here. I parked my bike towards the back

_Oh boy, here we go_

Yeosang takes a deep breath and closes the front door behind him, trotting over to where Seonghwa is checking that none of the neighbors are giving him the ‘I might call the police just in case’ look.

“Hey! I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“No, not at all.”

He’s standing on the other side of his motorcycle a distance that is simultaneously too close and too far away. Seonghwa’s hands stay firmly in the pockets of his leather jacket. He looks darker than usual. The familiar glint in his eye that gave him his fluffy cat look is replaced by a narrow, disdainful stare. 

"So... how was the rest of your afternoon?"

"Can we just cut to the chase?" Just looking at him, Yeosang can tell Seonghwa means business. His voice is low and even; calculated. He didn't come here to play games. He came here for answers. 

And Yeosang came to give answers, for better or worse. 

"Sure." 

"What's her name?" 

Yeosang does a mental runthrough of every woman he talks to on a regular basis, trying to figure out who he could be referring to, but comes up empty handed. Seonghwa has never met his mom, and he's only seen the other ladies of the lab through the window from a good 30 feet away. This doesn't make any sense. The fact that they've already gotten this far off course from his 'How Things Are Probably Going to Go' checklist means none of his pre-planned speeches are going to do him any good either. 

"...who...?" 

At this, Seonghwa's expression hardens. "I get it. You knew me from before, and fine- I admit I did some things I wasn't proud of. I can get why you'd be worried about me knowing. And maybe it was my fault for thinking we were that close, but I would have expected you to mention her at least once in all the time we've spent together. Did you not want me to know? Did it not matter to you?"

He wants to ask what he means about 'not wanting him to know', but he feels the nagging urge to respond to the first part before anything else. 

Because underneath all of the things that people thought Seonghwa was, and even the things Seonghwa himself thought he was, he was inherently _good._ He held no malice, and he went out of his way to try and understand people before passing any sort of judgement. They've had conversations about this on the dark nights spent stargazing through Yeosang's sunroof, showing faces that can't be seen. And it hurts to think that he still thinks of himself that way. 

"Seonghwa," At the sound of his name, his expression turns pained, "that has nothing to do with this. 'Skeletons come standard with the dirty laundry' and all that, remember? I thought this was about- You... you _saw_ the box, didn't you?" 

"I did." 

His tone isn't disgusted, but rather annoyed. But why? That doesn't match his demeanor when he left that night. The '???'s above Yeosang's head triple. "...and???." 

"It's normal to have a box of your girlfriend's clothes when you're dating, isn't it?" 

Oh.

_OH._

“No! That’s not- I’m not-“

It doesn't happen for a moment. Seonghwa processes the words with some skepticism, and when he sees that Yeosang isn't lying, his demeanor softens. He must be at a loss if he thought there was a girlfriend involved. He must feel a little silly for getting worked up over nothing. But he doesn't blame him- if Yeosang had thought Seonghwa was seeing someone, is would have put a chasm in his heart that would have been difficult to cross. He probably wouldn't have the courage to have this kind of conversation with him.

Seonghwa's gaze finally leaves the asphalt.

“If you aren’t, then whose-?“

Before he can get out any more words, Yeosang waves his hands, shushing him because he is _not_ about to explain his situation to the world, thank you very much.

“Follow me, we aren’t doing this one out here where people can hear.”

“Ok, ok, ok…” his voice trails as he lets himself be pulled along, Yeosang brain suddenly going into ‘who cares, they don’t know me’ mode as they pass a group of three of the twelve neighbors. He pulls Seonghwa along back along the path and into the safety of his own four walls. He locks the door behind him for safe measure, then turns.

“They’re mine.”

He expends the last of his oxygen, inhaling deeply as Seonghwa asks a puzzled, “They’re _what_?”

“The stuff in the box, it’s mine.” Yeosang insists. 

“They’re… yours…?” Seonghwa gives him the 'you're kidding me, right?' look, and it stings him deep in his heart. It's tough enough to say it once, but is he really going to drag this out? And if this didn't work, how else was he supposed to clear this up? 

In the space of silence, Yeosang makes a decision.

Is it a good decision?

No, and there are no take backs after this, but the one thing worse than thought of being hated for being himself is the thought of being pinned as a liar. Call him prideful, call him stubborn, but Seonghwa will know he wasn’t lying. He fumbles with the buttons on his high-waisted jeans and folds down the top to reveal a band of bright orange lace crossing his hips. He'd been stressed coming back from their impromptu run-in at the cafe. And what did he do when he was stressed? Put on a pair. Hands come up to reflexively cover his eyes while he waits for a reaction. He hears nothing at first, then a small whisper.

“Oh…. Oh my god…” Seonghwa’s voice trembles.

And Yeosang’s emotional dam breaks. 

++

++

Seonghwa must have won the karma lottery.

Seonghwa must have saved several small countries or been Jonas Salk-level awesome to be this lucky.

He tries not to make a strangled screaming noise but it’s just so _hard_ when Yeosang is so smart and lovely and witty and not dating anyone, let alone a lady, and Jesus Christ why is he so hot? All of those times he felt like luck wasn’t on his side must have been because they were gearing up to drop this wonderful boy into his life. There are so many things he wants to say, but the question is where to start.

Seonghwa is also staring like an idiot. Again. God, he really needs to stop doing that, and wait, is Yeosang crying?!? Nonono don't cry, it's going to make Seonghwa start crying and then where will they be? He leans over hoping that Yeosang won’t be mad about popping into his personal bubble and tries to help wipe the tears away.

“Shhh, no tears, gorgeous.”

He could have sworn he heard Yeosang’s breath hitch, but it could have just been the sound of Seonghwa’s boots against the linoleum or his jacket against itself as he tries to get into a better tear-wiping position. He waits until the crying turns into sniffles to talk. 

"Are you ok?"

"It's a lot off my chest. I was worried you were going to freak out and run again. Not every day you see a guy who likes... _this, y'know?_ "

Seonghwa bites his lip. If they’re going to be revealing truths, what better time to tell him than now? “Do you remember when we first saw each other? You and Wooyoung were waiting with San and then we all went out to dinner? Well… a while before that, I came home to a certain... _magazine_ and a note from San-"

“Oh my god you saw it, you were NOT supposed to see that.” Yeosang moans into his hands.

“I know, but listen,” he says, “if this makes you feel good inside, it shows on the outside. The way you glow, the way you carry yourself…. And I like you, Yeosang, in all your forms. Whether you’re envisioning how your thrifted clothes will fit or solving problems in your lab smock or talking to me in your living room with your pants partially rolled down-” the statement does _not_ beget the laugh he was hoping for “-but more important is that _you_ like it, and that you love yourself.” 

The words come as a surprise, but then again, Seonghwa is in the same boat- the only difference is that he wears his truths on his skin are out where everyone can see them. The mystical menagerie, the creatures, the landscape- all of that made him _him._ And he was amazing for it. And if he could do it… then surely Yeosang could be brave enough to show himself to someone he holds close to his heart, closer than a friend. He has many forms, many faces, and he does love himself, which means Seonghwa-

He looks up .

There's a dangerously small space between them, bodies so close that he can feel the puffs of air coming out of Seonghwa's mouth. The words that wait to be said do no justice to the feelings hanging in limbo. 

"Can I kiss you?" Seonghwa asks in a small voice, leaning forward. Yeosang steps into his reach, watches Seonghwa tilt his head to get a better angle, slowing in case Yeosang wants to back out. _Always a gentleman_ he thinks as he leans in and let his eyes flutter closed. 

He expects Seonghwa to taste like strawberries and cigarettes, but instead he gets sweet tea and oranges.

And a smile.

Seonghwa is a smiler. 

The pull of lips and cool air is different from others and slow, like drifting into an ocean. Yeosang lets himself melt into the cloud of pure Cozy, that mix of softness and safety, that makes him feel right at home in Seonghwa’s arms.  
It isn't magical. 

But it feels _right_. 

It feels like he's falling through dimensions, but all of a sudden the feeling of hands trailing down from around his back to his waist brings him hurdling back to reality. He pulls away. 

"Too much?" Seonghwa breathes. 

Yeosang shakes his head. Their faces are close, so close, and Seonghwa’s arms around his waist feel so nice that he considers ending it there just to keep him a little longer. But he has to do this- he has to be true to himself.

“There’s something I need you to know.”

Seonghwa rests their foreheads together, seeing eye to eye.

“Mhmm?”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m asexual.”

The sudden jolt of movement startles him. “Oh! Ok.”

Yeosang blinks. There’s no way this is going this smoothly.

"You… you believe me?" 

“It’d be a little hypocritical if I didn’t since I’m a demi myself.” He chuckles, “I thought you were going to say something worse, like you had a Jekyll-and-Hyde deal going on, or that you were secretly the eternal servant of some ancient god and now needed my help to make human sacrifices. That would suck. But hey- I’ll take that any day!”

The lack of weight on his shoulders makes his mind feel like it’s floating out of his body.

“God, you’re so weird.” The silence spans some immeasurable time as he settles back in, closer. The seconds stretch and crunch until he wonders, "Does this means we're dating?"

"Do you want to?" 

He feels a little silly answering 'I'd like that very much', but Seonghwa takes it as an opportunity to pepper him with kisses on both cheeks.

"How lucky am I," he beams, "to call you mine." 

The confession isn’t loud, but rather foolish and honest, as all loves were. There would be no grand explanation - it was something built over time, their meanings to one another growing like a garden carefully tended by two. A long time ago, Yeosang's father told him that the universe often graced its children with the necessary people to enrich their lives. It was his job to see these gifts and to cherish them. He needed to hold on tightly, he'd said, because crossing paths a second time was a rarity. Maybe Yeosang hadn't realized the gift the universe had put in front of him all those years ago, but he's had the good fortune of meeting Seonghwa again.

And the universe smiles when its children fall deeply, wholly in love. 

++

“Fuck! Right there!!!” Yeosang screams, screaming again two octaves higher as Seonghwa nonchalantly picks up the strange, brown, worm-like creature with too many legs and starts walking towards him.

“Aww but babe, it’s so cute!”

“PARK SEONGHWA I SWEAR TO THE LOST CITY OF ATLANTIS PUT THAT THING OUTSIDE WHERE IT BELONGS.”

The process of packing for a trip across Europe is considerably slower when every second brings a new distraction. The half-packed Osprey with clothes exploded across it stays open in the middle of the house they started renting last year. Yeosang has been using Seonghwa as a soundboard for his seemingly-endless debate over which camera he wants to bring. Seonghwa has been preoccupied trying to get his appointments booked with his favorite artists, though it’s going relatively smoothly considering he can use Yeosang’s brain as a calendar. The ball of nervous anticipation has been growing over the past few days leading up to now. It's going to be the trip of a lifetime. 

"BABE!!! COME OUTSIDE!"

"WHY???"

"NEIGHBORS GOT A PUPPY!" 

If they can ever get to the airport, that is. 

++

With itinerary in hand, Yeosang and Seonghwa pile into the backseat of San's CRV. Wooyoung and San promised to house-sit in the most grossly domestic scene any of them had ever been involved in, begetting a chorus of ‘ew, adulthood’s and well-wishes for a safe flight yelled through the window as someone honked at them for blocking the road. They run inside and speed through security, squint at the tiny words on the Departures panel, and run to their terminal just in time to hear

_Now boarding_

_Flight 657_

_To_

_Amsterdam Schipol_

Yeosang lets out a breath, hand looping around Seonghwa’s arm over where a little creature is poking out of the woods. It's something that no one has ever heard of before, and it sits right below a second little creature in the sky called a Vanna. 

"Ready?" Gate numbers and announcements play on in the loudspeaker overhead. There's a whole big world out there, one that Seonghwa has only thought of as a pipe dream until now. It's scary, jumping into the unknown. 

But he's got his angel by his side, and with him, he can take on anything. 

"Ready." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowowow this is the first fic I've finished in 2020!!!  
> My workplace is technically non-essential so I'll be working on some projects while waiting the virus out. It's been a wild time. Remember to love each other from a distance. Stay safe out there y'all!

**Author's Note:**

> If you also read COLORS I promise I'll get back to that, I just had this idea and thought that the best way to actually write this story is to start it and marathon it this week before I lost inspiration (which happens way too much)


End file.
